Posts Tagged ‘God’
March 4th, 2010
Outside my window, there are four doves in the branches of the tree. Their wings lift and flex, they stretch their necks, and fluff their feathers. Nearby a chickadee scratches himself and a few downy woodpeckers race each other around the yard.
At the suet feeder, three bluebirds sit patiently waiting for the red-bellied and downy woodpeckers to break apart the frozen suet. The juncos walk the ground beneath both feeders thankful for the falling suet and sunflower seeds. The nuthatch hangs upside down to eat; the finches flit everywhere, twittering at each other, while the cardinal pairs take turns flying in for seeds.
Across the ravine, I can see tracks of a deer, the neighbor’s cat stretching, and the squirrels hopping from branch to branch. Where the snow has melted, a few bugs rise up into the air. A spider weaves it web, and a leaf twirls beneath it caught by a single strand, dancing in the wind.
(Del caught a video of this leaf dance last summer.)
Leaf
It’s obvious when watching nature that everything in the universe is moving, together and independently, each unique but each dancing as One within and as the qualities of Life.
However, when it comes to ourselves we get a little confused. We don’t move. We exercise. Actually, there is nothing wrong with the word exercise; it’s the premise that we have given it that gives us trouble.
Instead of moving, or exercising as an expression of life within the joy of moving, we often are caught up in exercising to make something better.
However, our intent is to remain within the point of view that we are already perfect as the expression of God. So if we exercise aren’t we playing both sides of the fence?
Perhaps we forget that since everything that is present is the presence of God, or Mind, or Spirit then what appears as our body and all its parts is not separate from God. Remembering this we don’t negate our bodies and turn away from them thinking that someday we will vacate them and become spiritual. Instead, we recognize that what appears as a body has its substance in Spirit the same as everything else that we see and experience.
We all get very confused when we divide our world into two parts. Spirit over here, matter over there. In this separation point of view we have to make up rules based on which part of the world we think we are in each moment.
A separation point of view begins with something wrong that needs to be fixed. A spiritual perception begins with the fact that there is nothing wrong now, in the past, or in the future. Everything is perfection because everything is God’s expression.
What appears as a body is not an illusion, it is a misperception of what we are looking at and experiencing. We have all experienced at least one moment when the boundaries of our bodies seems to disappear as the mist clears and in that instant we know the Truth that there is no separation, that dualism is an illusion that is dissolving.
What we perceive as our bodies is no different then what we perceive as a tree, the birds, a flower, our income, or any other object that appears material to us. The key is in the word perceive. As we acknowledge and practice the truth of our being what appears as material to us, is seen for what it is, spiritual, whose substance is the qualities of the omnipresent “force” we call God.
It stands to reason than that acknowledging and enjoying the qualities of movement is an excellent way to begin the experience of our bodies, not as a solid object, or something we own, or something we are, and finally not as our dualist thought perceives them, but as the consciousness of God revealed in another of Its infinite manifestations.
Imagine what a difference it would make if we approached movement from the perception that instead of fixing our body through exercise, we were moving as the grace of God. We would no longer think of movement or exercise as a cure, but instead as a way of being.
We could do yoga, walk, dance, run, climb, leap, swim, play baseball, football, stretch, lift weights – the choices for us are endless. We could do all of this because we are the expression of God, and we could celebrate that fact with each form of movement we make.
Our worldview education shuts us into a tiny, closed-in material thought process, it is necessary that we take up the task of educating ourselves out of it and into the infinite.
The universe breathes with the grace of life. We are one with it. Take a walk with this open awareness of what is really going on. Move muscles, flex joints, stretch out into space, breathe deeply, expand your vision, go within, see the universe and all that it contains, spiritual, moving as One. Experience for yourself the truth of yourself within the grace of movement.
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You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.
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January 3rd, 2010
We were having lunch at a little café during a lunch break at a Utopian Conference where my dad was both a key speaker, and the founder of the conference.
The waitress was either busy, or ignoring us. Either way my dad wanted more coffee and someone else at the table needed mustard. After a decent interval of waiting, I got up and got both the coffee and the mustard myself.
Dad was worried and whispered to me, “Are you allowed to do that?” Although he was a very successful man in his field, he was afraid that he was breaking a rule of dining.
Del and I are attempting to show my mom how to program TV shows so she can watch them later. When I reminded her that she could simply pause a program for 30 minutes and then avoid all the commercials during a football game, she was fast to respond, “I need to watch it live.”
The rule is, “Watch football games live.”
Don’t we all do this? Rules are everywhere. There are rules of how to eat, sleep, love, play, and work.
There is a difference between a rule designed to protect our safety, or provide for our welfare, and those rules that imprison us and limit or remove our freedom. The rules of “this is how it is” are bars in our prisons, and yet they are beliefs only. One year those rules are one way, the next year they are another.
Together we could list hundreds and hundreds of rules that not only can be broken, but also must be broken.
Let’s break rules this year. Let’s sing a new tune, “Out with the old, in with the True.
Growing up in an English Professor’s household, I often heard the phrase when referring to writing, “You have to know the rules before you can break them.”
Translating that to the broader picture, it means we must become aware of the rules that we live by, before we can choose the ones to break. One way to discover the rules that are limiting us is to look at how we label ourselves. When we label ourselves or others in any way: sex, religion, age, country, family, intelligence, husband, wife, employer, employee etc. we are also accepting the “rules” that go with that label.
As we break rules, there are a few guidelines to help decide our path. Pay attention to whom it affects if you break, or don’t break, the rules. Following the rule, or guideline, “to love our neighbors as ourselves” would keep us away from breaking rules out of greed or survival.
The rule we are ultimately breaking is the rule that we must remain in the prison of human and material perception, which will leave us free to walk in the limitlessness of spiritual perception.
The signs are before us that light the way out of this point of view. Realizing that we have actually never lived in the illusion of materiality, breaking the bond of its limitations becomes much easier, and we behave with more wisdom.
Practice breaking a rule a day. Do you have to eat at a certain time, why not eat when you are hungry? Do you have to go to the store on Tuesday nights, or wash the dishes before having dessert?
This will pave your way to more profound rules to break. Do you have to suffer before being happy, is success defined by how much money you make, must you feel guilty when you choose your own path, or be a certain age before you feel wise?
And the most important rule of all to break: “To believe and act as if you are human until someday you pass through the portal where you will be a spiritual being. “
What are you waiting for, permission? You have always had the permission to live free as you choose, while not harming another in the process.
After all, all the advances that we so freely use today, from flying to internet use, are the result of someone breaking a rule. Someone asked, “What if, what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if it was different than I thought? What if we could?”
Ask yourself the “what if” question often this year. As you become aware of a rule of limitation, break it wisely. Expand and fly and be a leader into the infinite world of spiritual perception and limitless possibilities.
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You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.
December 8th, 2009
Instead of giving our future self a problem, wouldn’t it be more fun to give our future self a gift? Future self – as in tomorrow, later today, next year, or 10 years from now.
We all do it sometimes. We make enough in one meal to have it later. We save some money to spend it later. We mow the grass during the week so that we can go away on the weekend.
But, more often we give our future self a problem instead of a gift. We spend more money then we have, we don’t clean up our mess, we cover up problems, we don’t take good care of ourselves, we don’t learn new skills to keep up, we don’t read the instructions on something we are putting together, we don’t listen when someone is telling us something.
Oh yes, this list could go on and on. Instead of making resolutions about what we are going to do, which for the most part is giving our future self a chance to feel guilty because we don’t do it; why not switch it up and think instead, “How can I give my future self a gift?”
Of course we will be asking our future self to pass it on to its future self. These gifts are not designed to make our future self less, but more.
Since our habit is to not gift our future self, I developed a few ways for breaking that habit. For example, I notice that I often give my future self a problem because I put things off until there is enough pressure to get it done, either external or internal. Noticing that, I found a few ways to make use of that habit, and gift my future self in the process.
Here’s the first trick I use for myself. I give myself a “curtain going up” event. In preparing for theatre and dance events we always knew the exact moment in time when we were expected to be ready. The curtain would go up, and the audience would be waiting. There were no excuses or reasons why we weren’t ready, we had to be, and if we had any honor at all, we wanted to be the best we could ever be at that moment.
I loved the thrill of that moment of sharing what we did with the audience who wanted to see it.
I noticed without consciously choosing (rather than being pressured into) that “curtain going up” moment I could come up with lots of reasons why I couldn’t ,or wouldn’t, or didn’t do, what in my heart I really wanted to do. To consciously choose “curtain going up events” I make sure I schedule enough things in my life where someone else is “expecting to see the show” and I anticipate the thrill of sharing together.
How is this a gift and not a problem for my future self? First it is a conscious choice rather than an unconscious pressure that builds until I have to do it. Also, when I know that someone else is expecting the show and the show is something I really want to do, I start preparing early, enjoy the preparation more, and love the experience of doing a “good show.”
Or in really drastic cases when I find myself stalling, or hiding from what I know I really want to be doing, I ask myself, “What if you died today, would you be happy with what you have left undone?“ This can be applied to anything from cleaning the house to writing the next Ezine or book.
“Have a place” is another trick I use for making sure I am thinking of my future self. Packing for trips is a good example of this. As I think what I need for a trip, long before I go on it, I drop that “thing” into a bag that sits on top of my suitcase. A few days before the trip, the suitcase gets opened, and I willy-nilly toss into it what I think I need to travel. The day I actually pack, most of what I need is already there.
There are many more ways to provide for our future self. The interesting outcome is that as we gift our future self, we find that we are also gifting our current self too. We live more in the moment, not the past, we find ourselves less stressed and more excited about life.
How does this all fit into Spiritual Perception which is of course always the theme? Here it is.
Love providing for its future “self” is the Principle of big R Reality. It’s not how our five senses report it to be, but how we know it to be, using both logic and awareness.
God – I know I am temporarily making God “human like” – lives as the moment of “curtain going up” and “having a place.” God has to have every star in its right place, bird feathers attached, insect feelers operational, flower buds prepared, tree roots anchored, and every hair on our head numbered at all times.
As we gift our future self with small and large acts of kindness, it is a constant reminder that we are the recipients of Love gifting itself in all Its unique forms and ways. Not because it has to, but because that is how it works.
Knowing this, and living from it, is the best gift we can give our future selves, and as an outcome of this gift to ourselves we gift everyone our lives touch.
Gift your future self by living in your present self, and pass it on.
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You have permission to reprint The Shift Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.
October 13th, 2009
Have you ever had a cha-ching moment? It’s the moment when a new view of what has always been present becomes apparent to you; when something you have been trying to understand flashes through your thinking in an entirely different way and as it does so you “get it!”
We have all had those moments when everything lines up and clarity appears. It is like a slot machine that has a guarantee of a pay off if we just continue to put those quarters into it.
In this case we get paid in clarity which is much more valuable than money. With clarity we can see the obvious which was just a moment before hidden from view. This clarity reveals the presence of any form of supply that is needed for our daily life.
After building the deck on the side of our house the door was installed into my office. Now I can see a view that was always there, but was not visible to me.
Recently we held a celebration of my dad’s life. The speakers were those who knew him within his field of work. They shared stories and antidotes and as we listened we all had a new view of my dad.
A different view comes about in many ways, but is always a gift and one that is meant to be used. My door is meant to be opened and walked through or it is useless. An expanded view of someone else reveals new views of both them and us and makes a substantial difference in the quality of our lives.
A subject that deserves clarity is the concept of matter versus spirit. The worldview is that we are material, and someday we will be spiritual. The process of how this happens doesn’t matter as much as the idea that we are one thing now, but someday we will become another.
This view or perception acts like the wall in my office. It doesn’t allow us to see what is on the other side. It hides from view the outcome of knowing the Truth that God is Spirit and we are the image and likeness of God.
When we define God as the man in the sky (a glorious example of this is seen in the movie “The Invention of Lying”) we are not talking about the God that is Spirit. The “man in the sky” god is created from the view that we are material, or human, and that god is a glorified version of ourselves, made in our own image.
It’s our choice really which view of God we wish to accept and live with as our reality. For me, I choose the open door view and the idea that God is spiritual and infinite Love. Within this view we are also spiritual, now and always and not just in the future when we have worked through our humanness.
But to get to this cha-ching moment of clarity about ourselves and God we have to practice, just like you have to drop the quarters in the slot machine to win.
One way I practice is during my morning walks. As I walk I remind myself as often as possible that, “Everything I am seeing is not material it is spiritual and since God is Spirit and One then everything I am seeing is God.”
This contemplative practice of shifting perceptions results in my seeing things I never saw before, or seeing them in an entirely new light. It is this view that sets us free.
With this view, the world shifts to match our perception. We have more direct experiences that prove that our lives are the action of God. We find that we no longer need to or desire to control what appears as material. We let go and see the infinite power and abundance that is the Truth of the essence of ourselves and God.
The door in my office needs to be used. The view is beautiful, but the door is useless as a door unless I open it and walk through.
To experience those cha-ching moments takes the continual action of putting new ideas and perceptions into the machine of our daily lives and then enjoying with gratitude the cha-ching moment of clarity that opens up a new view of big r Reality.
Let’s celebrate these moments, and then take that clarity and expand on it until one day we know and experience in every moment that glorious new view of ourselves, each other, and God.
(If you are interested in reading about Dad’s event it is here.)
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You have permission to reprint The Shift Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer:
*Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.
September 17th, 2009
Once I asked a seagull, “How do you do that?”
I was walking along the beach near Delmar, California and a seagull flew by. It stopped in front of me, hovered, and then flew on. I thought that was so cool that I called out to him, “Hey, how do you do that?”
Its answer was to turn around, head back to me, and hover over my head. I watched for a long time and when I said, “Thank you for showing me how you do that” it flew away.
In our group called The Shift® Insiders I am always saying to them, “Ask me ‘how do you do that?’” I am thinking that if they see that I am already doing something they want to learn, then instead of needing to figure out the “how” for themselves I would be delighted to eliminate that learning curve and simply show them.
Walking again, this time in a neighborhood in Ohio, and holding a wide angle vision as I walked, I realized that I don’t directly ask, “How do you do that” to the infinite creator as I admire Its handiwork seen as the beautiful homes and trees and flowers and singing birds, and clouds in the sky.
I realized that God is probably patiently waiting for me to be bold and ask, “How do you do that?” How do you provide instantaneously and consistently for every blade of grass, every grain of sand, and every feather of every bird? How do you do love as the core of your Being?
I imagine that God would show me the answer the same way the seagull did, It would demonstrate to me instantaneous provision and infinite love and my only job would be to be aware enough to see it.
You are ahead of me aren’t you, because you know that is exactly what is going on all the time.
We are consistently provided with the demonstration of provision and love, but we are blind to it when we allow ourselves to be swept away by, and hypnotized by, the siren call of the evil of the worldview of lack and separation.
We watch, and sometimes even participate in, screaming and yelling, and blaming, and despair, and bad news, and hate, and greed, and unconscious thinking and believe that all of that is real and participating in this way will solve the problem and get us what we want.
We get caught up in it, mesmerized by it, and frozen by this evil that sometimes wears lamb’s clothing, but always bears the fruit of fear, hatred, or depression, or guilt.
We are sold the idea that the world owes us everything and we expect it to give us what we want now. When we accept this point of view as real we become addicted to figuring out how to extract from the world what we feel is our right to have.
If we don’t receive what we want the way we expect it to be, depending on how our human personality deals with these things, we may be angry, or depressed, or take offence. We may drop out or push harder.
Thinking that it is the world that provides what we want and need, we have made the world in debt to us and in doing so have become a debtor to the world, which of course has resulted in the massive debt with which countries and individuals are now burdened.
But it is not the world that provides, it is the infinite intelligence of Love that is provision. It’s a definite and radical shift in the way we think. We are not material beings, we are spiritual ideas of this divine Love, we are the provision, we are the supply, and we are the beauty that we see.
Perhaps this is incomprehensible to us most of the time, given that we have been blinded for so long by the opposite view, but we can and now must begin to see what is True about each one of us. One way to do this is simply ask of the infinite intelligence known as God, “How do you do that,” watch for the immediate answer and then say, “Thank you!”
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I wrote a book called A Woman’s ABC’s Of Life: From Women Who Learned The Hard Way that has a whole bunch of practical advice. I wrote it hoping it would save women of all ages lots of learning time. You can read more about it here: Perception Publishing
August 27th, 2009
Every morning I have a drink that begins with a cup of hot water. One morning our microwave broke so I thought, “Well I guess I won’t be drinking that this morning.”
It took a few minutes before I realized that a microwave is not the only way to heat hot water, just the one we had used for years; habit constricts horizons.
There is always a way. Maybe not the way we have done it for years, but the Divine that is infinite possibilities does not have only one path or one way or one supply or one opportunity or one look or one anything other than the One that includes all and is known as Love.
It’s hard to remember, much harder than realizing that hot water can also be heated on the stove. That’s because we are so used to feeling separate from Love with the accompanying feeling of lack.
The habitual lack-based worldview always attempts to creep in and separate us from the infinite possibilities and practicality of Love. It is in those times that we cling to the rock of Truth.
I can always tell when I am feeling very separate. I start having dialogues with myself; sometimes playing out more than one role, but always talking. This is different than my “normal” talking to myself; this is the dialogue that plays out how it could have been, should have been, or what I might have said if I had been wise enough in the moment to say it.
Getting out of that separate and dialoguing state sometimes feels impossible, but it is not. However, it does take a willingness to turn off the channel of separation and tune into the channel that is about the One.
One way I do this is have a grateful dialogue which resets my point of view and state of mind. As I do my morning walk, I try to practice a walking meditation. It’s harder than it sounds. I have to keep dragging my focus back to gratitude and away from whatever message the separation channel is playing.
Recently as I practiced this I experienced a new awareness about the statement, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.”*
The “Seek ye first his righteousness” became clearer. I realized that I couldn’t get to that feeling of peacefulness and love by seeking it either for myself or another, I had to seek first what is the Truth of Love and peace, and of course the rest would follow. I had to seek the right thinking – righteousness – that is Love.
One of the walking meditations that I use to ground my point of view in the Infinite One is the statement, “We are the loved of Love.” The “we” I am referring to comes from Mary Baker Eddy’s statement, “There is but one I or Us….”
While I am walking my mind wants to drift away to conversations, past, future or imagined; or it becomes occupied with designing places and things. It moves away from the idea of wholeness and is distracted by what I want. It doesn’t matter how good my intentions may be for what I want, or even if I want for another, it is still a distraction away from Truth.
Using a 360 degree soft vision technique while walking not only turns me away from the hypnotic internal dialogue, but brings my state of mind back to the awareness that the statement “We are the loved of Love” not only means people, but everything that appears externally and places it all back where it belongs, within the circle of One.
Obsessive vigilance is required when our intent is to move from the self-righteousness of fixing what appears to be broken or separate, to God’s righteousness which already is the wholeness of Love. Seeking to understand first the kingdom of God is not about getting something for ourselves or others, but the intent and desire to really know and live as One.
Meeting anger and resentment and sorrow with all encompassing unconditional love for ourselves and each other is one way out of the unhappiness of separation. The sooner we choose this perception, the sooner we find the peace and comfort that is the joyful atmosphere of the kingdom of God.
What does all this have to do with making hot water? Sometimes we think there is only one way to forgive, one way to seek first the kingdom of God, one way to experience at-one-ment, or atonement.
But there are many ways for each of these actions. Love, the nature of God, is expansive not constricted. No matter how many times we may appear to step away from the righteousness of God, the moment we step back and yield to Love’s direction we are within the kingdom of God and we intimately experience that each of us is the loved of Love.
*Bible – Matthew 6: 33
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You have permission to reprint The Shift Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.
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 7th, 2009
There were about 30 people sitting around the parameters of the DMV office waiting their turn at the counter. No one was very happy about it.
Then a little girl came in with her Dad. Holding on to his hand she began swaying from side to side singing the phrase from The Beatles’ song, “You say goodbye, I say hello.”
Intentionally or not, as she sang she changed the mood of the room. It was almost as if she was saying, “You all think you are waiting, I say be happy now.”
By being what she sang, she demonstrated the way to make a change, not by doing, but by being the state we wish to experience. She shifted our perception from a wait, to an experience of happiness.
In our lives we have all experienced that mood that was in the DMV office. Take a number and wait. We sink into the feeling that maybe in time things will turn around, but in the mean time, wait and put up with what isn’t right.
If we agree with this perception point of view, and allow ourselves to descend into that perception state of mind then yes we will wait, and not in happiness.
We don’t have to agree with this point of view. In fact we must not agree. We can be just like that little girl. We can hold onto the hand of the Principle of Truth and start singing, “You say goodbye, I say hello.”
If life is changing as it must, then say “hello” to what is here now. If doors appear to be closing ponder the meaning of this promise: “I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” Rev: 3 -8I
With what strength we have we can stay with Truth and not listen to and follow the lie of lack that is being told. The voice that is speaking these lies may appear to be coming from within or coming from without. But it is still the voice of a liar. It is not your voice; it is not the voice of Divine Love.
No worldview can shut the door that is always open. It may be hard to see it in the mist perception of duality and not enough, but it is always open and being held open for us to walk through anytime we are ready.
The way to clear our perception is easy; we stay with, and stand by, and hold hands with, what is the Principle of Love.
Make it simple.
Follow a line of reasoning that goes something like this: Since Good in omnipresent, then there is nothing going on that is not Good or God. Since Joy is omniscient there is nothing going on that is not Joy. Since Love is omnipotent, there is nothing but Love going on. Since Principle is omniaction there is nothing going on but what is right.
This is not saying that what is obviously bad is good. Instead we become aware that it is only a misunderstanding of the Principle of Good, Love, which makes it appear as if bad could be going on.
Shifting to a spiritual perception removes the blindfolds, takes off the dark glasses, and opens our eyes to see what is really going on, “the Omni’s” of God.
Caught up in the waiting room mood we get trapped into the thought pattern of what we have to personally do to make it better. We have to work harder to figure out how to get another job, make more money, be happier, find love, stop abuse, etc.
This only makes it worse because we are still in the waiting room. Instead, stepping out of it through the open door that is always open to Truth, what appears as the outside world shifts without an effort on our part other than keeping our perception in line with the Truth of God.
Have you ever boiled eggs in a pan? You place the eggs in the pot and pack them all in. There doesn’t appear to be room for anything else. However, when you add water the eggs all float around and “miraculously” there is room for more.
This is exactly what happens with perception shifting. Add the water of spiritual perception to the pot of things that must happen, and they shift around and “miraculously” there is room for what is needed.
Yes there will be action for us to take, but not to make something happen; instead beginning with the correct premise and perception of the Infinite One called Love, we experience something entirely different.
Practicing spiritual perception instead of hard work within the waiting room, we follow the guidance of the still small voice within. We find it easy to be happy now to say goodbye to what isn’t true and hello to what is, and always has been, and always will be, True.
January 8th, 2009
I had a nightmare recently. The core of it was I was trying to tell Del something and I couldn’t speak. In the dream I knew I was dreaming so my “task” was to wake up.
I did. But, I still couldn’t move. I lay there thinking how will I live this way? How will I help my clients, write my books, be present for my family?
And then I realized I was still dreaming. When I woke up “again” I was just as I was when I went to sleep. Nightmare over, I felt immense relief.
It took me some time that night to realize that I was still dreaming when I couldn’t move. Within the second layer of the nightmare I didn’t bother to try to declare the truth that I was not paralyzed, I simply decided to deal with it. I was doing “what if’s.” Calmly maybe, but certainly preparing to believe in and live with the lie of being unable to move.
Once I woke up out of the second layer of the dream and felt free to move about and do my “work” I almost let the lesson go. Almost, until I heard that still-small-voice within me say, “Wait, Isn’t this a clever deception of the one lie? Wouldn’t it make you feel so terrible that any relief from that nightmare would lull you into a false sense of security and freedom?”
Yes, of course. In times of stress and trouble and no place else to go, we go to God. We ask to wake up from a nightmare which can take many forms; illness, lack of funds, sadness, and grief, all within the grip of and born of fear. In our great pain we demand to wake up to Love and that awakening heals, or dissolves, that nightmare situation because it was only a dream.
In a dream-nightmare we do that by knowing the truth. We know we are dreaming and we are not awake. We demand to wake up.
In our awake-nightmares we wake up the same way. We know the Truth. We declare that there is only One, and it is Love, the Principle of Infinite Intelligence.
We rise above the lie of the dream by argument, or awareness, or we perceive the immediate evidence of Grace. With all these ways of awakening we begin with the perfection of Love and with the full knowledge that we are simply asleep to the Truth.
Waking up, we feel relief. But, still isn’t there more waking up to do? If there is any place in our lives that we are making do, figuring out how to live with it, dealing with “what if’s,” we can be sure that we are still sleeping. Sleeping more comfortably perhaps, but still asleep.
We are all asleep within layers of dreams. We are all not fully aware of the consistently constant, ever available, always present, completely accessible, perfection of Love Loving Itself, which – amazingly – is who we really are. We are the love of Love Loving Itself.
We are – you are!
We are how Love knows itself. We are how Principle is seen. We are the thought of Mind.
If we experience less then this ultimate Truth we are asleep within layers of the dream.
The weird part and the trap is we think we have to understand this perfection within the dream. That’s the lie at work again. The dream which is the state of the lie itself, or imperfection, cannot understand perfection.
To get to understanding, we have to wake up to it. Understanding is a quality of Mind Itself. With every awakening the light is brighter, the awareness is clearer, and our life has adjusted itself to match our new perception.
As this happens, which it must, let’s not be satisfied with a partial awakening. Let’s continue to choose to wake up completely and stay there.
Gratitude for each awakening and awareness of the fact that there is an Infinite One propels us forward, keeping us alert to the dream. Once we are completely awake we will know as we are known. Until then, I wish us all, sweet awakenings.
