SPIRITUAL GROWTH...FREEDOM FROM SELF

Fear comes in many guises...as a judgmental mind for instance. Nothing agitates our thoughts more quickly, more deeply than sitting in judgment...especially when we are justified (and who has ever sat in judgment knowing it was not justified?).

Those of us who seek to calm our agitated thoughts by sending them outward start out believing we're doing good in that we don't send them toward their real target. We just give them to someone else about the target. It's a real bummer when we learn that is just picking up mud and slinging it in our own face. For they will return to us...like a faithful dog gone bad they will return and bite us in the bum.

I have come to understand that our worst fears are our best friends. Nothing makes us dig deeper than fear for a spiritual solution...sometimes known as "foxhole prayers," but we've got to start somewhere. If we are willing, that start will lead us to the realization that the only lasting solution is a spiritual one...and we cannot self-will it. I am learning, slowly, that that which we seek we already have. I now have freedom from fear...or, more truthfully, freedom from fear of fear.

Fear will come...sometimes unexpectedly and for no instantly known reason. However, fear usually arrives attached to a want...a want we're afraid God either isn't aware of or is aware of and doesn't want for us. We'll do ourselves a favor if we learn to pray and really mean, "Thy will, not mine, be done." Then we can think of our worst-case scenario (i.e., we don't get our want), and we find our head and heart open...non-resistant...to whatever God wills.

It's a fairly simple process on paper. Doing it is a whole 'nother picture, but do it we must if freedom from self is our goal. And that's the whole of still more spiritual growth...freedom from self.

Thank you.

REMEMBER TO THANK HIM

So I'm into my yoga this morning and I hear myself setting good old Gertrude straight...who I sense is having a problem with me. (For no good reason, what did I ever do to her?, get over yourself, Gertrude.)

I then remember that I have a couple others in mind from whom I'm getting negative vibes. The good news is I have been consciously practicing the Sermon (agree with your adversary quickly) on those two. And my doing has been remarkably on target. I have not been as nasty as I wanted to be in any instance and have gone out of my way to do for them...to do very little, but at least I'm heading in the right direction.

The fact is that our thoughts can be fairly drag-foot when it comes to changing from irritation to love...from resistance to non-resistance. But there it is. That's the key...our thoughts. When our thoughts get too agitated, we need to practice the discipline of turning immediately to something else. Anything else, but most helpfully to something of beauty...mental pictures, poems, a loved one, whatever.

It does not matter if our agitated thoughts are directed outward at another or inward at ourselves...they are fear, that is all. Since fear is part of the human condition, we won't let it go completely, but we can consider it our invitation to God to get cracking...to do his thing. Remembering to thank him for relieving us of the bondage of self.

Most important is the realization that if we still felt agitated, it's not God failing, it's us hanging on...to our human condition rather than our spiritual condition. The choice is ours.

Thank you.

OUR GOLDEN RISK

I awoke this morning with the thought, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth," and I understood that is why "thank you" is the only prayer we will ever need (not want, but need).

The Beatitudes in their entirety are simply a set of paradoxes that introduce the Sermon on the Mount, an entirely paradoxical sermon if ever there was one.

In essence, when the Sermon says that you have been told, etc., etc., etc., but I say unto you, etc. etc. etc., what we get to understand is that what our reasoning mind once advocated is the opposite of God's perfect will. [Ye have heard that it hath been said An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. -- Matthew 5:38-39]

"Resist not evil," "turn the other cheek." Our reasoning mind would never arrive at either of those as a good idea. But God did...God does and forever shall.

The hardest thing we're ever going to be asked to do is to change our mind...according to me. The awakening is in the realization that that does not mean only to change our mind from either/or, black/white thinking for that is just staying at the reasoning mind level. No. We are asked to let go of our ego-victory senses...our I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong does not exist in God's world. (It does, however, in the material world, and if we're ever going to cease fighting everything and everybody, we're going to have to give that up, too...and first.)

The gold, however, is in our risking being lifted into the fourth dimension of reality...detached from our personal wants, fulfilled by our one, already met, need: to serve God and man.

Thank you.

SECOND-GUESSING GOD

There is so much in my life to be grateful for...so many undeserved blessings, unearned gifts...and I am grateful, unbelievably grateful. I say "unbelievably" because I know from whence I came.

There was a time if I'd been gifted with the Hope diamond, I would've complained because it was blue...in my mind I can hear me now, "Well, it doesn't even look like a diamond...everybody'll think it's just a great big sapphire." Think about that!...who complains that they've been gifted with a great big sapphire?

Without gratitude, that's where most of us live most of the time today...nit-picking our gifts. Second-guessing God.

I know, for me, gratitude is the answer...no matter the question, the problem, the oh rats, and the why me...gratitude is the answer.

I hold a couple thoughts in ready reserve today that keep me anchored to that answer: 1) Don't be as nasty as you want to be (my personal golden rule); and 2) Whatever I've got, whatever comes to me...whatever it looks like to my ego's eye...call it the good and get grateful.

Worst case scenario is I get a crock of crap so ugly even God would hold his nose. What can we do with that but laugh? And laughter is just gratitude on the hoof.

Thank you.

LAUGHTER AND LOVE

I wonder if all our woes aren't born in our resistance to all our woes.

We have heard often enough, and have come to realize, that acceptance is the answer to any and all problems...and it is wonderfully easy to see that is true when it's another person's problem. But when it's our own?

That's when we come again to the very fact that acceptance cannot be self-willed...it can't be arrived at like a decision of what shoes to wear. Acceptance begins life as a crash-and-burn proposition...we crash and burn trying to get what we want rather than accept what we've got.

This will be true until we learn to live a life of acceptance...until we learn to cease resisting our own life. That's when we're living a turned-over life...a life centered in and directed by God.

The hard lesson a-learning is we still have to do our own footwork. We still must "feel the fear and do it anyway"...we still need to move closer to that friend/foe/spouse/employer who, for no apparent reason, is being so ugly to us. Ease closer. With an attitude of gratitude (no mental eye-rolling!). With love (no "oh, puh-leeze"). With love. And laughter. Actually, we'd best start with laughter or we'll never get there.

And that's my long-sought-after answer to life itself...laughter and love.

Thank you.

THE PRAISING PRAYER

Earlier this morning I wrote three pages in my journal of nickel/dime stuff that I did less than wonderfully yesterday...that I suspect is coming down the road toward me today...that I wish I'd thought of sooner...that I wish I'd forgotten about altogether. And thanked God that he has the power to do with those as he wants me to do.

It was only after I'd written my 2-Do list for today, the last thing in my daily writings, that I remembered a few fairly minor things that I did yesterday for the benefit of other than me. I did them spontaneously with neither thought nor plan, and they were appreciated.

It's only worth noting because I wrote three pages of coulda, woulda, shoulda, and, practically as a P.S., I wrote a short sentence of I-done-good.

Just a reminder to myself that the praising prayer does not have to be for banes alone...it can also be for boons.

Thank you.

OUR CHOICE...AND OUR CROSS

More and more I am convinced that pleading prayers are just another way to block our acceptance of God's will...or just another way to follow our ego's dictates.

We become obsessed with "perfecting" our plea, making it good enough, pretty enough, pleasing enough to God that he (apparently) will go against his own good sense and grant us our wishes. Sometimes our ego even uses self-denigration...spelling out how low and unworthy we are, with undeserving at the top of the list...in hopes that this does the trick in maybe guilting God into giving over to our will.

The child's blinding flash of the obvious is still true: "God don’t need no frills and I ain’t no worm."

I am a believer in a statement I once heard (and I don't remember from whom, when or where) that God's will is what our will would be if we had all the facts. Convincing our ego that it doesn't have all the facts is our choice...and our cross.

The praising prayer that fits me, that I use in times of wonder or woe, is, "Thank you for my everything just as it is right this very minute. Amen."

Thank you.

IT BENEFITS ALL

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear

without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

but this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels

into the open sea.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s "Book of Hours: Love Poems to God" 

(Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

[Lifted entirely from Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditations," May 24, 2014.]

My take: Rilke's poem is a wondrous description of what happens when we  detach from our self-determined objectives...our wishes, our wants, our desires...and let the will of God within us...our perfected good...flow forth. It can't but benefit all.

Thank you.

THE GREAT UNIFIER

It has been said that if you know the truth without loving it or love it without understanding it, you don't know it. As Jung said, we paint the images our soul needs to see, which reminds me of another spiritual axiom: What we see is always ourselves.

If we will stop long enough to recognize ourselves in the fear that another is exhibiting by his anger, seemingly directed at us, we will have the choice of responding with anger (fear)...or with peace (love). If we chose anger, our ego will continue to drive our bus, our thoughts. If we chose peace, we will know unity of heart, spirit, soul.

Really, that's all we need to realize...that we are the source of all our woes and of all our wonders. That is taking responsibility for ourselves. The gift is in taking that responsibility. That is the great unifier. That is our Now. That is our One-ness. 

There is God.

Thank you.

GOD'S JOB...THANK GOD ALMIGHTY...GOD'S JOB

"'Twas God that taught my heart to fear, and God my fears released." That's my memory of a line from "Amazing Grace," which might not be letter-for-letter correct, but the sense of it is.

That's probably my favorite line in that song because it gives me permission to feel fear...and not to feel responsible for breaking free from it...God's job, all of it.

All of life...God's job. Doesn't that make you feel like singing? It does me anyhow...Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty I'm free at last.

The only caveat, of course, is the need to remember that. Not mine, busy mind; not mine, attack thoughts; not mine, good old Gertrude and poor pitiful Hector...nor mine, but God's.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. From the bottom of my grateful heart, I thank you.

ALL LIFE IS A JOURNEY BACK TO GOD

I have about a half dozen things nattering me right now. As I read my "God Calling" this morning, I saw a note I'd written on this day in 1998...listing three or four things that were nattering me back then. By "nattering" I mean doing my thinking for me...living my life, slapping me upside my head.

All those things from 16 years ago resolved themselves...none enough for me to even remember if I hadn't written the note. In short, they had no substance. I realized that the things on my today's list are exactly the same...not real. They live only through my resistance to what I am seeing...my interpretation, really.

I am grateful that I know the way to "loose them and let them go" is to welcome them. Let them be by seeing them from a different angle...a "thank you" angle versus a "damn you" angle.

I'm a tish disconcerted to realize I have no idea how long it's going to take me to get on the other side of my own resistance. It's times like these that the reasoning mind says, "But this is real...this has nothing to do with spiritual growth."

And I'm smack dab...yet again...up against the fact that all life is a journey back to God...it's all spiritual growth.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH...WITH

I wonder if the basic difference between duty and love isn't the difference between "got to" and "get to?"  Maybe it's all one of perception..."got to" [MUST-ego demands] and "get to" [MAY- God permits].

Simple example: I've got to visit my sister; I get to visit my sister; I've got to take Ruckus out; I get to take Ruckus out. Got to bars the door (resistance); get to opens the door (nonresistance).

A tish more complicated: I've got to let go of my attack thoughts; I get to let go of my attack thoughts.

In the simple example, the "how to" is obvious. Just do it...go visit, go walk the dog. But letting go of attack thoughts? That requires a change of mind, which if we've been paying attention, we've learned we cannot do with our unaided will. This is likely where "got to" forms an eddy in our ego-victory thoughts, and they spiral downward, leaving us feeling helpless, guilty, angry...all the while hanging on to "got to."

Just change that one word, "got," to "get," and our ego-powered mind gives over, possibly by just an inch, to our God-powered heart. An inch of giving over, gets a mile of inspiration...and we're heading in the right direction.

Which does not mean that we are now totally free and clear...no. It means that we are heading in the right direction! With the rest of the journey being our doing our spiritual disciplines daily in order to remain open to God's permission to live at peace. Our ego does not need daily discipline...it is self-powered. It only needs us to forget our daily spiritual disciplines...then it's back in control again.

The surest way to remember that we get to...anything...is to remember to love and laugh...with everything.

Thank you.

WALK AWAY FROM SELF...TOWARD GOD

When we find our lives in turmoil...everywhere we look relationships, events, things seemingly upside down and backward...we need remind ourselves that this is simply a sense of separation from God.

This is true when personal attacks come unbidden, unannounced, out-of-the-blue as it were. It is true when our mind is attacking another and us with a smile on our face. It is true when we have a life-threatening ailment. It is true when our refrigerator goes on the fritz and our computer flips us the bird. It is true.

The minute we entertain a sense of self we have excluded God, and we begin to look "for a way to perpetuate ourselves. The fear of extinction and the struggle for survival become the motivating force in human experience with aggression and fear the dominant and recurring theme." (Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 930.)

All that is by way of reminding us (the bad news) that we are the source of all our woes, and (the good news) that God can and will intervene in our life on our behalf.

We turn from thoughts of how we must take care of ourselves, set somebody straight, shoot the fridge, go back to pen and paper... and turn instead to the fact that the Father knows our needs and has already fulfilled them in the best possible way for us personally.

Our only job is to ponder how we can align our will with his so that we may walk in the direction he has laid out for us...away from self toward Self.

Thank you.

WILLING UNTO READY

There's a canard going around in my world that, once we have done this and/or that, we "get our power back" and we can use that power as often as we like.

The Book says: "What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. 'How can I best serve thee -- Thy will (not mine) be done.' These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will."

That's a horse of a different color. When we accept that premise, that God's will is preferable to our will, we become willing to follow directions and, finally, ready to learn.

Thank you.

WITH EYES UNCLOUDED BY LONGING

[The following is a reprint of my blog of September 12, 2012.]

In my readings this morning a phrase from the Tao te Ching, "with eyes unclouded by longing," spoke to me, and I knew that was what I need to seek. That thought brought me a blinding flash of the obvious: To seek eyes unclouded by longing is an oxymoron.

To seek self-determined objectives equals that first drink to an alcoholic, resulting in a never-ending thirst. The sought after becomes unattainable and the desire becomes insatiable, our only focus and thus our only God.

Stand still and acknowledge: I AM that which I am seeking.

Thank you.

LOVE, LAUGH AND PRAY WITH PRAISE

I have been asked many times, 'How do you stop thinking?' And I have found one way. The minute I look at any person or condition and know that it is neither good nor evil, my thought stops, and my mind becomes quiet. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Thunder of Silence," at p. 57

I've been mentally arm-wrestling with God this morning, about a condition that my ego is invested in. I remembered that quote of Goldsmith's, so I brought the condition into my mind's eye and pondered it...seeing it as neither good nor bad. Nothing necessarily happened, or I didn't know it if it did, but less than an hour later, I had a blinding flash of the obvious: I want to leave my current nemesis with love and laughter as his memory of me.

That requires me to change my attitude, change my own interpretation of events...change my mind, in short. I can see the event as it transpired, with her saying and doing exactly as she did and said, and myself the same...only now see us both laughing as it all transpired for there were no ugly words, only a less-than wonderful attitude on both parts.

God has given me my goal, to leave my friend with love and laughter as his memory of me...a perfect idea where we both come out the winner. I cannot of myself do that but I can make myself available to let God's grace flow. Plan not, plot not, and stay open to the sense of loving kindness going forth.

The key is remembering that I cannot all by myself make the necessary changes but only I can head my thinking in a higher direction in order for grace to do the dirty. I just get to love, laugh, and pray with praise.

Thank you.

I HAVE THE CHOICE; HE HAS THE POWER

WOW...I look at my yesterday's blinding flash of the obvious; i.e., to welcome another's resistance, rather than respond in kind, is opening the door to Oneness, and I think of exactly what took place a very short time later. It's clear to me that God's hands were in it up to his elbows.

Long/short, I went to my exercise class, told the instructor I needed to leave 15 minutes early. She took that personally, said so, and also that she was going to "make" me do balancing as punishment (!). Another person said I'd not be making early appointments again, to which I emphatically replied, "Oh yes I will...I'll just not be coming here when I do!" Put a pall on that class.

Several inner things have happened since. First, my ego loveloveloves my pall-casting remark, and keeps rerunning it in my head. Second, my conscience is not happy that my ego is happy. Third, I just this morning saw the gift of it all...and realized God's perfect plan.

I'm going with: God inspired my yesterday's blog, knowing what was to come and knowing how I needed to react in order to receive my living lesson...for me to see me in order to move that which he dictates from my head to heart to my soul.

My question to him this morning is: How long is it going to take us to start the moving process? How long before I quit loving my ego blast and start loving/leaving my instructor's words alone...without a home in my head?

My answer: The choice is mine. He has the power, follow it...starting now.

Thank you.

ON ONENESS AND OWNING FREE

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: To welcome another's resistance, rather than respond in kind, is opening the door to Oneness.

The key is the realization that the resistance we sense coming from another is, in fact, resistance to our own interpretation of what we are sensing.

Our ego does the sensing, dictates how we "should" feel about that, then cracks the whip...and there we go off the selfless track that we sincerely we want onto the one of self-determined objectives...heading down that wrong road again.

The question we need answer: Are we willing to risk inviting into our consciousness all the acts of resistance from others that we sense today in order to own them for ours so that the other can be free...which, through God, frees us?

Since "want to" is not willing, albeit the first step, we can only be certain of our willingness by our actually doing it. Which means that we remember that the Father within does the work, then we walk up to the firing line, close our eyes, and pray for peace.

We repeat until there is no firing line...only lilies of the field, and we own free.

Thank you.

GOD IS NOT AVAILABLE ON DEMAND

Our lives must be lived by grace. Whatever we do, there is a divine power, the power of grace, working within us and through us to the successful conclusion of that undertaking. Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 921

I believe that, so why is it so hard to remember? Particularly, "Whatever we do, there is a divine power, the power of grace, working within us and through us to the successful conclusion of that undertaking."

The "particularly hard to remember" being when we're dealing with others. If we set out to write a book, or a paper, or paint a picture, we generally know we're going to have to lean on a power greater than ourselves for inspiration to accomplish that. But avoiding a personal conflict that we are racing toward with dreadful anticipation...higher power? Pish-tosh...who needs it? Or better, a power greater than ourselves is too great to be bothered with such petty stuff so we won't even go there.

Rohr tells us that there is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see. And grace has taught us when we perceive a problem and go for spiritual thinking, feeling, doing, being, our first task is to un-know. To detach from our own ideas. To divorce ourselves from our own opinions.

Here's the paradox: The willingness to turn first to God accomplishes the task. It is our reasoning mind that cannot accept that and thus spins and whirls and prays and ponders on how to un-know, let go, detach, etc., etc., etc.

It is in our flash of willingness that feels-like hopeless prayer, our "Please," that gives God the go-ahead...and it is finished. We're still trying to form the right thoughts, get the right words, figure out the answer that we want, and, unbeknownst to us, it is already perfected.

It takes us as long as it takes us to realize that...and that, too, is God's perfect plan. God is not available on demand. God is available because God is, and that is All.

Thank you.

LOVE MORE

A man once came to a rabbi and said, "My son is estranged from God,; what should I do?" The rabbi replied simply, "Love him more." (From Eknath Easwaran's "Words To Live By," May 12)

You are estranged from your friend, from your soul mate ...love her/him more.

We are estranged from our mother/father/sister/brother...love them more.

Sounds good...but doing it? That's the toughie, and it takes a lifetime, according to me.

I believe the doing starts with depersonalizing. Whatever we hear, feel, sense...and resist by a hair...depersonalize it. The "it" we must depersonalize is our own interpretation to what we've heard, etc., for that is what is causing our resistance.

We hear, we interpret, we personalize, and we resist. Then, we name it "parent," "sibling," "friend," "spouse," "enemy."

Until we become willing to name it "self," we will never be free to love.

Thank you.

KEEP IT SIMPLE...LET GOD

I am reminded this morning that true spirituality is a mystical matter, not a moral matter. Mystical, meaning not of the reasoning mind. My reasoning mind right now is sitting in judgment, and my ego is calling it God's will. It is not...it is just another self-determined objective.

Interestingly, this came to me this morning when I read a note I wrote in my "God Calling" on this day in 1989...AFTER we'd followed what we took to be God's will. What a mess. What a mess that I am grateful for today. For we had talked back then with mentors, many friends and some total strangers, and all had agreed on the course of action to take, and we took it.

That's how we learned that God's will is in the mess, too. Just because we did not get the result we were going for, doesn't mean there was no God in it. We each learned something that we would not have learned otherwise...something different for each since we each had our own lesson to learn.

That's how "the mess" is transmuted into "the gold." Let God change the way we're looking at it.

Thank you.

TRUSTING THE GRACE OF THANK YOU

The only thing separating you from such Immensity is your unwillingness to trust such grace, such an utterly unmerited gift.  -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," May 10, 2014

Gossip is an interesting activity. I'm a believer that all gossip starts with our resistance...resistance by a single thought to another's words, actions or attitudes which we interpret according to our own standards and beliefs. 

Very simply, gossip is born in our resistance to our own interpretation of those things we see in another which we then personalize and call by the other's name.

It is a hard lesson learning that silently sitting in judgment is the same defect and gets the same payoff as running our mouths in judgment. It can be harder to let go of, too...not running our mouths to another may give us a secret sense of superiority.

The surprise is in learning that what we need to clean up is not the running of our mouths and/or our minds in judgment of another. No. It is our resistance...our immediate, before conscious thought, resistance to that which we are seeing in another.

The good/bad news is, we are incapable of doing that cleaning up all on our own. It's like changing our mind...we need a little help from our friends (being willing to hear them) and a power greater than ourselves (being willing to believe there is such a thing).

The way to get there, to get to our own willingness to listen and to believe, is the same...just pray "Thank you."

Thank you.

UNHERALDED AND ENLIGHTENED

It's amazing to me how many spiritually enlightened, unheralded but enlightened, people I come across daily. Those who show forth a spiritual light from within. People who live a simple life...a giving-over, non-judging, loving life.

I stand in awe.

I study, I ponder, I do my quiet time, I read spiritual books, I laugh a lot and love more than I ever dreamed that I even wanted to, and I know I'm the Grandma Moses of spiritual growth...stick figures and crayons are uptown to me.

Yet, I am blessed with the friendship of a man who, among so many other things, runs marathons with others welfare on his mind (which reminds me of the old spiritual, "When He Was On the Cross, I Was On His Mind").

Then there's my friend, the born-and-raised Catholic lady, who joined a Methodist church because she was so taken with and wanted to participate in its social welfare program...a program of feeding the poor, of tending to those in need.

Truly, I stand in awe.

There's my beloved friend, the retired Navy captain, who has a health hiccup right now. He is so free that he  laughs and/or cries as the spirit moves him at the good he has been blessed with. All who know him know right well that his life has been blessed with good because he walks with sunshine or, more like, sunshine walks with him.

I may feel like the Grandma Moses of spiritual growth but that's close enough to perfect for me. Close enough for me to know I need more, I want more...and may not get there till three days after I'm dead, but I'm heading in the right direction.

I know I am blessed because the marathon man, the social-welfare lady, the Navy captain, et al., are in my life purely and simply because they want to be. YOW-zer!

I stand in we.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...RESIST NAUGHT

In reading my Goldsmith this morning, I'm happy to be reminded that his advice to anyone filled with fear is to "fear a little more."

That's it. That's the trick. Invite our worst fear in, look it in the face, kiss it on the lips...that's the only way we can fully realize fear is not a fact, it has no substance, it has no power except what we personally choose to give it...by our resistance to it. We're not resisting if we're kissing! Resist not...resist naught.

Welcome it...and here comes "thank you" to show us how it's done.

Thank you.

THE PRICELESS PEARL

By your acceptance or rejection of universal beliefs, you determine what governs your life.--  Joel Goldsmith, "Heart of Mysticism," at p.898

Some of my universal beliefs have shown up as:

1. I must take care of myself...when someone slights me, snubs me, criticizes me, I must respond in kind else they will think they've won...or, worse, I will think that I have lost. 
2. In this economy, I must watch every penny or I'll become a bag-lady on the street.
3. When I hear someone spouting utter nonsense, I need to explain to him the error of his thinking...or, advanced thinking, keep my mouth shut and try not to feel too superior to her.
4. When a friend and I are at sixes and sevens, we need to pull back and avoid each other until we get straight in our own heads.
5. When in a conference/meeting and I'm not being heard, talk louder.

Each of these is a universal belief, or, what can be called, a reasoning mind truth. Each has a spiritual correlation some of which may seem paradoxical, as in:

1. When someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek.
2. Lay up nothing for a rainy day else you'll wind up with naught but rust.
3. Judge not less you be judged.
4. To heal our relationships, we need to move closer when we differ in order to learn to live and work together without friction.
5. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.

It's fairly easy to tell when our ego is driving our bus...the "universals" sound right on target, the "spirituals" are a Wha??? 

If we wanted to divorce ourselves from any responsibility, we'd wish that God didn't speak in such a soft voice or that our ego would quit yelling. The trouble with seeking still more spiritual growth is we find it and know that divorcing oneself from any responsibility is to go with the ego every time...and all its consequences. None of which are an asset, most of which we then have to make amends for.

This is where just knowing it doesn't make a dime's worth of difference, but we have to know it before we can become willing to do it. Then, when we become willing, we realize that want-to is not willing; it is, however, heading in the right direction...toward entirely ready.

There is no cheap "entirely ready"...but the price is the priceless pearl. 

Thank you.

LIVE LIKE SOMEONE LEFT THE GATE OPEN

There's an e-mail picture I received recently that I love so much. It is of a little dog...a little cream-colored dog who looks exactly like my Ruckus...running flat-out down a road, all four paws off the ground, ears wind-carried upright. The caption: "Live like someone left the gate open."

Doesn't that say everything?

When first I saw that, I thought of the freedom of our actions in living like "someone left the gate open." Do what we want, when we want...then I realized we most of us do that today. We've learned that as long as our search is for still more spiritual growth, we will try to think of others before we think of ourselves, and that frees us to pretty much do as we wish.

Then I thought of our hearts...what about the gate of our hearts, open to all? There, too, I can believe that most of our hearts are open to all the majority of the time today. It being a given a majority is 51-49, but with the same-old-same-old goal of still more spiritual growth, our open hearts can live on the far side of 51 today.

Now I think of our thoughts, our minds. Live like someone left the gate of our minds open. Uh-oh. Blinding flash of the obvious...there is only one mind, and it cannot be closed. Which leads to the question...how can we connect with that one mind?

The answer, of course, is through our thoughts...through consciously turning our thoughts away from self toward any grateful thought. Any. Grateful. Thought.

That's how we are connected with the one mind for that's how peace of mind is born. That is truly living like someone left the gate open...because S/He did!

Thank you.

TURN IT OVER AND BOW OUT

Breathe in My very Spirit in pure air and fervent desire. Keep the eye of your spirit ever upon Me, the window of your soul open towards me. You have ever to know that all things are yours--that what is lovely I delight to give you. Empty your mind of all that limits. Whatever is beautiful you can have. Leave more and more the choice to Me. You will have no regrets.  "God Calling," May 5

Our most important lesson in that passage is not the promise of beautiful gifts to come to us, but the understanding that each "I," "My" or "Me" is within us and is the giver of the gifts. It is not out there, not an entity, formless or otherwise, out there, but within us, within every part, particle, molecule of our being.

I'm guessing that's why it's so hard to understand fully that I can and will fulfill all my needs. It's so much easier...or maybe "comprehensible" is the right word...for our reasoning mind to grasp our needs coming to us. No. They flow from us.

That is the deep meaning of "I Am that I Am." Those are just so many words until we are gifted with the realization of their truth. And that gift, too, comes from within.

In a blinding flash of the obvious, we know, and we know we know...whereas we once knew from our eyebrows up, we now know from our toenails up. That is realization. Eyebrows up = head knowledge; toenails up = realization.

This clarifies why "thank you" is the only prayer we will ever need. For every thank you prayer we pray is an acknowledgment that we are exactly where we need to be, that our beloved who appears to be in need of health, money, love is exactly where s/he needs to be...which opens the power within to flow forth and do its thing...whatever that thing may be. Our reasoning mind knows only what it wishes it to be, but I know what is needed.

Acknowledging that it is I who has the power is the surest way to stop the reasoning mind from trying to figure it out, to get its way. For it finally recognizes it can neither convince nor connive an outside force to do its bidding since there is no outside force.

The power is within and the reasoning mind finally bows to it...turns it over and bows out.

Thank you.

THE FREEING LIGHT TRANSPARENCY OF SPIRIT

We must make a conscious transition from dependence on the visible and tangible to a radical and complete reliance on the Invisible.... (Joel Goldsmith, "Heart of Mysticism," at p. 908)

Taking oneself too seriously is the tie, the pipeline, to the reasoning mind. To believe that there is a self to be acted upon at all is taking oneself too seriously.

To turn the too seriously into laughter is the key...the key to seeing through the serious dark matter of self to the freeing light transparency of Spirit.

There will always be a sense of the material world within us and to fight that is to nurture it. By resisting it, we give our whole attention to it thus withdrawing our attention from the Spirit world within us of love and laughter.

We learn to welcome it when our material sense slips in, taking us unaware, and in a heartbeat we're feeling hurt, angry, afraid. We learn to hug it, to kiss it on the lips and to let it go remembering, say, FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

That is turning our wandering thoughts back to God...that is all, for that is all.

Thank you.

HERE AND NOW, THEN AND THERE

Two years ago today I visited my parents' graves in my hometown.

As I stood there, I silently reviewed my life...the highs and the lows...and I thanked them and blessed them for always standing with me through it all. I assured them that I have turned out well, and that they could be proud of me as a product of their own. And I felt their happiness, I knew their peace, and I felt as one with them.

Often and often, I hear it said by some that we can never know, really know, about the afterlife...where we go, if we go anywhere, what, if anything, happens to us, when we die to this life.

Indeed, the reasoning mind can never know...at least, to its satisfaction. That is the purpose, the function, of still more spiritual growth, the reason why we daily discipline ourselves to lift our consciousness higher...or to be lifted higher. It is to be released from our reasoning mind's rule...from our ego-victory thoughts, our self-determined objectives. That is the only way to be "free from me"...still more spiritual growth.

It is through our raised consciousness that we know, that we cannot not know, what happens after life. Mom and Dad in their on-earth graves, me silently talking with them, all three of us God consciously connected. That is what happens after life. We return to God consciousness...here and now, then and there. One.

According to me.

Thank you.

GOD'S SINGLE THOUGHT

I found a note this morning that I had written to myself, a reminder apparently: "2013 - Whether summoned or not, God is there."

That was such a comfort to me that I had to wonder if I was secretly running scared...and if so, of what. Then I grinned in relief remembering that it matters not what may have me running scared, I just don't linger there.

Occasionally of late I've  caught my thoughts going on the attack which reminded me of Goldsmith's contention that if we are having many frustrating or disturbing experiences, "even apparently minor ones such as missing our bus or misplacing things, we may be sure that we need more frequent and deeper contact with the Source."

My more frequent and deeper contact with my Source is a heartfelt "thank you" which lets me know that God is already and always doing his thing within me/without me.

I know that when my attack mind acts up again (and it will, and it will), all I need do is turn to a single thought of God. By that conscious act all will right itself in my very thoughts...therefore, in my very life, in my very world.

Thank you.

KNOWING AND SHOWING

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 26, 2012.]

Years ago, in a spiritual setting, I heard, “I know it, and I show it.” More and more lately I have been saying, “If you know it, you must show it…else you don’t know it.”

Blinding flash of the obvious: If you know it unto realization, It shows Itself…you have no control over it.

Thank you.