WE WANT NOT...FOR ANYTHING, FOREVER

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." I shall not want for anything, forever...any need I perceive has already been filled before I could perceive it...my perception of a need is my realization...the bubbling to the surface of the fulfillment of that need. -- My morning blinding flash of the obvious.

We know our perceived need has been fulfilled not just by the feeling of good about our self but, more importantly, by the inner feeling of peace and goodwill about the world, about our world, about all around us, from within out. That's our click-click that God is on the field (a description of Joel Goldsmith's that I identify with).

Thank you.

THE PERFECTION OF UNKNOWING

Deep acceptance of ultimate mystery is ironically the best way to keep the mind and heart spaces always open and always growing. Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 29, 2015

I believe those of us who have chosen the spiritual path have made the U-turn...away from our logical reasoning mind (as in, how can I fix this, make that happen, not happen?), toward the ultimate mystery...realization, yet unknowing, of God's perfect outworking of life itself. Yours, mine, that child we worry so about, an elderly parent, a lost friend...lives already perfected. Ours to let them be.

We may not understand the perfect outworking for, being of God, it benefits all, the how of which the reasoning mind is not built to understand. If we divorce our self from our fix-it reasoning mind, we will not need to understand the how of the perfect outworking. That is the perfect outworking.

Thank you.

HEALING POWER OF POWERLESSNESS

Many years ago...eons it seems...I was gifted with a knowing. The knowing was all about the healing power of powerlessness.

I was told that it is not enough that I love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my body, with all my brains, but that I must trust that God of my own understanding just as much. And that I can only show to myself that I love my God by living that trust.

I have learned that to live that trust is to come to realize that I cannot do that which has been given me to do. I cannot fix any problem of my own making or of yours. I can justify it. I can excuse my part in it. I can even forgive you your part in it...but it is only by crashing and burning by/through my own efforts that I am forced to acknowledge my own powerlessness. There. Right there is the invitation for the higher power to rush in with the healing balm of acceptance. In that instant flash of realization, our skein of tangled worms is unraveled, cleaned up...for the benefit of all concerned.

And we may never know it. Or, more to the point, we may never believe it.

We need only gratefully accept that God has it, without knowing the how of it, and we will walk free in our own mind. If we continue to live in our reasoning mind, however, worrying and wondering, we will continue to live in our own blame and shame.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

WHY NOT COME TO BELIEVE?

More and more I am believing that the way to no more wars is to be the one who first agrees. The biggest impediment to our willingness to agree first is our reasoning mind will invariably project the final worst-case result, e.g., Chamberlain appeases/London is blitzed or, worse, I agree/you win.

The secret is that if we each learn to live in agreement, it cannot come to blitzing or worse. 

If we are to grow spiritually, we will learn to think small...to project smaller...not out there to worst-case, but in here to best-case. We begin to distrust the reasoning mind for, led by ego, it will always legislate for itself and to our regret...the spiritual mind legislates for others and to our benefit. 

We learn to keep our imagination reined in to our own self, to right now in this moment for this is the only place God is to me...within me right now, this instant. Same goes with Putin/Obama right this minute, right where they each are wherever that may be. Ditto our friend, our  brother/sister/parent, our spouse/partner, boss/co-worker, each or any one of whom may be giving our ego fits right this minute. Agree with your adversary quickly.

That's why coming to believe is so important...without a belief in a power greater than ourselves, we must rely on our reasoning mind to protect us. It will ever seek "me first" even when it is beneficial to give over. 

So the way to no more wars, according to me: We each turn within and humbly ask for the knowledge to do our higher power’s will, whatever that may be, fully understanding that it will not be to our ego’s liking or for our ego’s benefit. It will always be for the benefit of the other...seemingly.

God is available within each of us right now whether or not we believe it...so why not come to believe?

Thank you.

AND EVERYTHING ELSE

Fear is the root of all negativity...anger, resentment, hate, even minor dislike. What we must needs remember...and recall...and remember again is when we think we're fairly fear-free and yet have out-of-the-blue attack thoughts, it is not anger that is our problem, it is fear.

We are told to wait for the faintest tremor of fear, then stop everything and turn our thoughts to God. If we're not aware that "the faintest tremor of fear" includes "the faintest trace of irritation," we can be deep into our own attack thoughts before our heart beats twice.

Today's "God Calling" sets out in the simplest terms the hardest lesson for us to learn: Do not seek to work for Me. It's a new day a-dawning when we realize the value of that advice...a self-determined objective, dressed up in our own minds as spiritual work, is still a self (not God)-determined objective.

It goes on: Never make opportunities. Live with Me and for Me. I do the work and I make the opportunities.

The path we take toward learning unto trusting unto showing that God's will is only good, not us mentally making good out of bad, is in those simple instructions.

We can want to do good. We can strive to be better than we are...we must, in fact. We just get to let go of the results of our wanting, of our striving. If it turns out good, wonderful, if it doesn't...ah, that's how we build our trust in God's will. By trying to do good and failing miserably to our own eyes, we often find later that failed result is our pearl beyond price...that which on our own we could never have brought about.

Vengeance...and everything else...is mine, saith the Lord.

Thank you.

EMBRACE THE UNWONDERFUL

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: The biggest danger we face in our walking around world is believing our own press...the accolades and the rotten tomatoes...for they are all the same, nothingness, in the spiritual consciousness that we seek, i.e., God's world. The danger, of course, is in our believing, we resist...making them Velcro to our ego.

To me, since both praise and pans will come, we get to go against the ego's want (to wallow in the praise) and embrace the pans. Achieving that (getting over our own self) is our gold, and we can know it is our gold from the resulting peace that comes...which praise never gives, it just begs for more.

There is only one consciousness, God consciousness; however, there are many levels therein. We must, through our silence (not just of mouth, but of mind), seek to go deeper to a higher level if we will ever move out of self into Self.

Choose you this day whom ye shall serve. -- Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

WE ARE NOT IN THE LEAST ALONE

I wrote the following first thing this morning: My spiritual growth is to go forward toward my seeming betrayers, not correcting them but correcting me, through the Father within. LET My Spirit run me.  [NOTE: Let it be known, my "seeming betrayers" are those who disagree with me...not to put too fine a point on it.]

It was after I wrote that that I read both of the following squibs:

From Easwaran's "Words to Live By" today: We need people to grow, and all our problems with them, properly seen, are opportunities for growth.

From Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today:  Even the Gospels seem to jump over Jesus' thirty years of uneventfulness, paralleling midlife for most of us, during which all the seeds are planted for a later sprouting. Jesus increasingly encounters many human trials and hostility, just as most human lives do if lived with integrity. He thus identifies with humanity at its lowest point, in the place of rejection, betrayal, immense suffering, and even crucifixion. That's the bottom, the place of powerlessness, the place of emptiness as the separate ego allows itself to die, the place where transformation usually happens. Here God says to all of humanity, through Jesus: 'I'm with you. I understand. You are not in the least alone.' And this lowest point is in fact the beginning of the highest point, as a new symbiotic relationship begins between the soul and God.

"And this lowest point is in fact the beginning of the highest point, as a new symbiotic relationship begins between the soul and God." There. That's the message I knew even as I wrote my note to me this morning...it's the rest of the story, the why I'm to go forward toward my seeming betrayers, not correcting them but correcting me.

Now my real enlightenment time begins...the hard work of detaching from my ego's need for victory. To let my betrayers be right...not so much without as within. Not by my words, but by my attitude. By my honest desire to see us as seeking the same for ourselves and for each other...still more spiritual growth pure and simple. 

Here's my great comfort:  "Jesus increasingly encounters many human trials and hostility, just as most human lives do if lived with integrity." And here, also, is where I go to God for God and that is all...for God is with me and does understand...I am not in the least alone.

Thank you.

PRETTY WORDS...HARD ACTS

It seems I'm forever preaching that we already have, were indeed born with, all the patience, kindness, care and consideration...i.e., love...that we will ever need. To pray for them is to deny them. We just have to use the love we already have...be patient, kind and caring, and we will find we have enough with twelve bushels full left over.

Such pretty words.

I was reminded of all that this morning as I journaled. I was writing about a friend who came to me yesterday with his same-old-same-old, and I was mentally less than charitable toward her. I realized that there have been at least three instances just since last Sunday, today being Thursday (early Thursday), when different people have come to me with their source of woe, and my patience was stretched, my kindness was thin, my love was more a word than an act.

I remind me again: The danger in believing we have the right answer for another's woes is that we may invite those woes into our own consciousness, only to find our answer is exactly right but in that moment of our need, we simply don't remember. According to me, this is being mesmerized by our own reason. 

I do know if I don't quick seek higher help (as in, "Thank you, God, for reminding me I need you now"), I may well stick myself with those woes which are simply rues, regrets and remorses aborning. Those are the most difficult rues to shuck...those are akin to the mud we sling that lands in the middle of our own face. Talk about hard to clean off!

And here's where the best advice of all pays off...love and laugh. See the monkey?...that's me! Love and laugh!

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR GOOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: Free speech need not make others angry. The spiritual lesson to learn is how to take responsibility for my individual response to another's free speech.  I take responsibility by not resisting it, by inviting God to do my responding, my thinking, feeling, acting, being. Be the light that brings others to victory over self that It may bear witness to others of Its love, His will, Her way of life. 

I wonder if all the people-problems of the world couldn't be solved if each of us would take loving responsibility for our own response to what we are seeing, feeling, hearing, saying.

Picture it: Thank the Source within that just for today we assume the best...we hear only kindness...speak only caring words in response to what we hear...see only the best in others and in our bathroom mirror.

It's like John Lennon's Imagine. All he asked is that we imagine world peace. Here, all we're asking of ourselves is to picture personal peace.

And the ever-resistant ego whispers, "That'll never work." There. That's exactly the  point where we take responsibility for our own thoughts, words and deeds...by agreeing with the ego then doing the God thing.

Thank you.

HOW TO HEAR GOD SPEAK...AND KNOW IT

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8).   

According to me, to my reasoning mind (and that of many of my beloveds) much of our spiritual growth is just eyebrows up talk, talk, talk. We tend to discount the unthinking acts of grace that flow from us for that very reason...we didn't think of them.

It is important (and per Saint Paul) that we ponder, think on and give thanks for our many blinding flashes of the obvious, for our unthinking acts of grace. These are our steppingstones to heaven...heaven to me being a quieted mind. There. A quieted mind is how we hear God speak...and know it.

Thank you.

ON DEATH AND DYING

I was with my uncle down in Kentucky some years back as he was dying. He was a good man, very devout but not a fanatic about it...he was fun.

I've always been puzzled about his death. To my mind and in my opinion, he died angry. Angry at most everybody...at his wife, whom he adored, but she'd either said or he'd interpreted her as saying that he might as well let go, i.e., die, because otherwise he'd use up all the money hanging on to life and leave her broke. Then, they'd hired a couple of nurses to be with him, one black, the other white, and his long-ago bigotry popped right back, alive and sick. And one of his former teachers who had never married, and with whom he'd shared a long friendship, came to visit him fairly often during his final illness, and he enjoyed her visits. But as he was dying, his remarks to others about her unmarried state were really ugly.

All of that was brought to my mind this morning through this passage in the Gita about death: "... the content of the mind at the hour of death directs the soul in its journey to rebirth. Thus the mind influences the evolution of the soul as it moves into the next life. Whatever a person thinks about in life -- his or her deepest motivations -- are likely to be the last thoughts at the time of death. So there is a continuity between this life and the next, and all the baggage of desire and motivation goes right along with the soul."

And here's (to me) the most important part: "To ensure he will focus his devotion on [God] at the hour of death, he should make a practice of remembering him continually now...learn to focus his being on [God], then naturally at the time of death he will think of nothing else. Otherwise, in the chaos of death, he will panic and lose his way."

All of that is by way of saying, we keep coming back until we get it right...or at least that's what I've long believed. And the way to get it right is to focus on our thank you prayer...practice it, focus on it, breathe it. "Thank you"...and that is all.

Thank you.

EGO-STANDARDS V. GOD'S STANDARD

[The following is a reprint of my blog of April 14, 2010.]

As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I got a blinding flash of the obvious: “You need to lower your standards.” Since my standards aren’t extraordinarily high to begin with, I knew that could not mean what it seemed to say.

I realized that I was being told to lower my ego-standards. It is in letting go of ego-standards that one reaches God’s standard…Love.

Deep in the center of one’s being is that standard which brings perfect peace. It is known by various names…The Golden Rule, Service, Loving kindness are a few. The practice of any one of those can and will bring one perfect peace, but, I’m a believer that one cannot practice them in order to get perfect peace…or indeed in order to get anything.

One practices love in order to love…ah, perfect peace.

Thank you.

A CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELFLESSNESS

Although a selfless man or woman may seem to go through the day doing nothing extraordinary, without them nothing would revitalize the atmosphere in which we think. "God Calling," April 18

I realized as I read that, that a selfless person may seem to be doing nothing but breathing and the next thing at hand...it is the consciousness of selflessness that revitalizes the atmosphere. And consciousness cannot be manipulated. Just because we're doing the next right thing, if it's a self-determined next right thing, it is of self and therefore not selfless.

That's the trip-wire for me. More than once I've thought I knew the right thing to do, I did it, and here it came back at me...filled with unwonderful. Invariably I have found...my "right thing" was for me all along.

That's the beginning of our learning that we "come to God not by being strong, but by being weak; not by being right, but through our mistakes" to quote Fr. Richard Rohr.

We build a selfless consciousness by our very own thoughts, words and deeds. All of which probably start out self-absorbed. It is through our singular desire for still more spiritual growth that we are moved to a higher level deeper...from self- into other-absorbed. Non-resistant. Welcoming. Loving.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE THROUGH GRATITUDE

Blinding flash of the obvious: I thank God for the petty wants I seek (which may never be mine), for the needs I perceive...I ask for naught for in the thanking, I acknowledge that I have already been gifted with everything I need...the failure, then, to see it, to know it, is not God's to deliver but mine to realize...to believe in faith without seeing.

We are learning the art of acceptance through gratitude. And that is the discipline we must practice...to thank God for everything...every jot and tittle (and I never even knew what a jot or tittle was, but it didn't take a lot of smarts to figure it out). There. That's where we start...we quit trying to "figure it out."

For red lights when we're in a hurry, for green lights when it doesn't matter, for found money, for lost money, for all in between...thank you.

Thank you.

MAKE A DECISION, THEN BE

I am questioning my belief that we need to tell another of our incoming slings and arrows, i.e., we need to use another's ears and voice to hear and guide us through the upsets of life. I am writing as if that is essential for all and for always. I want to be sure that which I am putting out there as a "need" is in fact of God and not an ego-victim urge.

At some point I may need to say me nay...to sit with the incoming fire and get no release, ego or otherwise, by telling another. Here's the Catch-22. There is a danger in believing that we are so spiritually advanced that we can go to God and be cleansed of all negative thoughts, words and deeds. I do not doubt somebody somewhere, other than the Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus, has accomplished that, but I for sure have not. And, who's kidding whom, the chances of it happening in this lifetime are slim to nil...if I be realistic bout it.

This brings me to forgiveness...which may be the answer to the Catch-22...the necessity for forgiveness as we breathe. I like the experience I heard of a friend that translated into we must "make a decision to be a forgiving person." That's it...not to become a forgiving person for then forgiveness is always just out of reach. If we make a decision to be a forgiving person, according to him, in that decision we are.

I'm guessing we will know it for our truth when a real unforgivable happens, and we forgive then and there on the spot. Actually, a petty s/he-stepped-on-my-toes will do it...that'd be my truth test.

Thank you.

KNOW DEFEAT AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT

It takes a long time to move from power to weakness, from glib certitude to vulnerability, from meritocracy to pure grace. In Paul's letters, he consistently idealizes not power but powerlessness, not strength but weakness. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 15, 2015

As I look back, it seems the majority of my spiritual growth has been in my willingness to detach, become smaller, have less, get solely to give...in my moving from the desire to be noticed, acknowledged, praised to the unfettered grace of unknowing. Thus giving me the option to live unafraid, accepting that my ego can and will rise up in righteous indignation and do my thinking for me whenever it wants to. I am powerless over that, too.

I am not powerless, however, over turning my thoughts away from my ego (i.e., changing my mind). All I need do is give a silent "thank you" to my ego for sharing and to my God for caring, and let go.

Which sounds simple enough, but this is the part that "takes a long time." For me to honestly let go, it generally takes another person's ears to hear me and voice to guide me. My ego finds its voice when I've made a decision based on self, and its hidey-hole is in my reasoning mind. There my ego can justify my decision...as in, I wouldn't have made that decision if it hadn't been right for me period end of story...now on to obsessing about it.

The quickest way in this world to stop the obsessing is to remember our decision to "agree with our adversary quickly," to "cease fighting anything and anybody."  Just remembering our decision is the first step on the right path...away from ego toward God.

We may need to re-remember a whole lotta times, but our goal is toward God now. Once we finally hit the wall with the re-remembering, grace just sorta flows within us. We know defeat, and we feel goooood. There. That's God intervening in our life in our behalf.

Thank you.

THE FIRST MUST NEEDS BE LAST....

Mercy, I note that tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of my beginning my sit with my friend. So much "glory" has come to me through that, and so much "non-glory" has come to me through that.

The exact same is true with my friend and with my club...brickbats from the friend, accolades at the club.

The non-glory and the brickbats are for my permanent spiritual growth else, without inside aid, my ego will link up with my reasoning mind and drive that victim-train forever. The glory and the accolades will falter, fade and be forgotten in a heartbeat.

And just this morning I read of St. Francis teaching the friars: "We must bear patiently not being good and not being thought good."

As I read that, "not being good" is the human condition, and "not being thought good" is the ego's bane and prod. There's our marching orders: In our daily search for still more spiritual growth, the first, i.e., the "glory," must be last, and the last, i.e., the "non-glory," must be first.

Thank you.

TWO WAYS OF VIEWING LIFE

We can live seeing only through our own mind's eye, or we can live seeing through God's eyes. It takes willingness, discipline and grace to turn from seeing and believing our own reasoning mind's view of our life's happenings to not seeing but believing God's view. While looking at, while experiencing, the exact same thing.

The trouble  with God's view, to our own mind, is it seems the reverse of reality...paradoxical at best. But the proof of God's perfect view is in the seeming disasters that befall us in life, that swamp us, until our reasoning mind gives up in utter despair...surrenders in fact. And here comes God to save the day! Simply by allowing our mind to be changed, we are given a different way of experiencing the reasoning-mind disaster. There we find our own pearl beyond price.

Word of warning...this takes time and daily discipline. For the blessed few, it can happen in an instant...the burning bush effect. Never pooh-pooh the burning bush...we never know but what we will be so blessed and miss it for our lack of willingness to see.

More and more I am viewing life itself as akin to the way of the Cross. Everything the Man did, he did it for good...and according to my reasoning mind, where did it get him? It got him hanging from a cross is where. Yet over two thousand years later, I look through God's eyes and see that same fact celebrated annually...celebrated with songs and praise, with a full hallelujah chorus.

My extremely puny personal experience has to do with the over ten years when I got to take care of the IRS. My mind was changed about the unfair disaster that appeared to be, becoming today my deeply mystical spiritual experience.

I am beyond grateful to God for making that change.

Thank you.

SEEK FIRST TO KNOW GOD'S WILL

Every misstep we make, God is already there correcting us, making it right. That's a hard lesson to learn. We can or will not believe that unto reliance. We either rely on our reasoning mind, guided by our ego, to bolster our misstep (i.e., justifying it), or, guided by self-will, try to make amends without ever seeking to know God's will in the matter.

There is where our hurtin' begins. I'm convinced that those of us seeking still more spiritual growth cause our own pain by seeking to do God's will before ever seeking to know God's will. We assume it has to be that which we don't want to do, so we do that which we don't want to do and create more mental havoc...meaning, usually we wind up simply embarrassing ourselves. Oh, the pain!

It was a great comfort to me when the thought occurred to me, and then I came to believe, that God has my back. Literally. I have come to rely on that. So I try to do the best I can everyday and every way, and when I fail, and fail I do, I know God has already corrected that. Therefore, my job cannot be to correct it but to quick acknowledge my error, if only to myself, and then open my mind to the direction I need to go to show forth the correction.

Most of my missteps are in the area of personal relations so in staying quiet in order to get my directions, I have these simple guides:

1. Try not to respond in kind.
2. Try not to be as nasty as I want to be.
3. Silently thank God for this situation just exactly as it is (simply because it is).
4. Tell God and another trusted friend. (We need the friend's ears and feedback. This is essential in order to turn from my ego anger, always directed outward, to seeking to know my part in it, always directed inward.)
5. Give it time...possibly the hardest part.

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds! -- Chekhov

Thank you.

LET GOD DO THE WALKING

The promise is that God can and will intervene in our life on our behalf.

If that be true, then God can and will intervene in my life on my behalf. God can and will intervene in Gertrude’s life on her behalf. Both at the same time. For the same problem. For God does not play favorites. That's how we come out the other side feeling good for each other because we both are the winner.

Our reasoning mind cannot comprehend how that can be...our ego does not want to know. Because ego only legislates for itself, it resists...most everything. To the ego there is only, "I am right and s/he is wrong...now obsess about that."

Our lesson to learn is to "agree with our adversary quickly." To "cease fighting anything and anybody."

Our discipline is to learn daily to turn our reasoning mind, our will, over to the Power within and let God consciousness walk us through...anything.

Thank you.

EGO REDUCTION THROUGH HUMILITY

We must go beyond reason to love. "The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment," Thaddeus Golas

There is no spiritual growth in the reasoning mind...we’ll get understanding there, but we can stay there, “understanding the problem,” till our face falls off. Until we go beyond the reasoning mind, and use that understanding to turn our own self over to the care of God, we've just got some pretty words that we keep repeating.

Ego reduction in depth is our call...not to break it, but to reduce it daily. I don't know...If we break it, we likely break the reason we keep coming back for still more spiritual growth. I'm reminded of when first I learned about humility. Humility, I read, is a healer of pain. What a concept! I'd always wanted a pain killer for which we can take any number of things. But they only kill the pain for a limited amount of time. Humility heals the pain and gives us the peace that we keep by passing it on.

Same goes for ego reduction...it is for us to go to God daily with our ego perception (s/he done me wrong) and seek translation of that perception into God’s truth (love him, her, it). We will never be rid of the ego, but with God’s grace and our willingness, we can train our ego to give over to God, to cede its nonexistent power and feel the freedom, know peace.

We keep bringing our ego back to that free place for ego will always legislate for itself first...that's its job. We are not in it to break it, we are in it to reduce it through still more spiritual growth...always and all ways.

Thank you.

TAKING THAT LEAP OF FAITH

I am reminded this morning that it is a pitiful fact, but a fact nonetheless, that all my woes start with me...care and concern for me. All my worries that I dress up as care and concern for you, for the poor lost children of Africa or Appalachia, for the US of A...are just my divergence from still more spiritual growth. They are my own masks for self, interchangeable and useless.

It's just great knowing that...knowing that is vital to our spiritual growth or for our just walking around on this earth growth. But once we learn that, it is useless information until we are using it in our growing from there.

If we're doing it right, we will get to this point: the point of knowing that it is more personally painful to stay self-protected than it is to take the risk of feeling bare-butt naked before our world.

That is the point where we hold our nose and take a leap of faith all the while knowing there is no net...there is no safety hook, no u-bie we can make when we realize we are going to crash and burn. For there really is no one out there to protect us. There really is nothing to save us the way we think we need to be saved.

The horror and the gold is that the crash and burn is the pearl beyond price. Think about it...the Cross is not a symbol for crash and burn for nothing...if not for the Cross, there is no resurrection. If there is no crash and burn, there is no walking free in our own head!

Now to welcome that...and not by talking but by leaping.

Thank you.

WITHOUT CEASING

I offered my ego to God to tame, to do with as he willed...the answer came back that the ego is mine to tame, to do with as I will...that’s the “free will” we are given before conception, at birth, throughout our life.

Our heart and soul we can give to God, but our ego is ours TO DISCIPLINE...that’s why we must needs seek still more spiritual growth daily, twice, thrice daily...”without ceasing.” 

Thank you.

TEST THE POWER OF THANK YOU

We can always recognize a dishonest person...s/he's the one seeing dishonesty in everyone else. Beware of him for she will become you in a heartbeat.

Here's the discipline...learn (by doing) to expect the best. Expect the best of our own self...not only of our ability but of our willingness to give, to give over. Expect the best in others...in their response to us and to life itself.

We are responsible for how we choose to interpret what we hear. If we choose to interpret as holy water the mud slung in our face, we're allowed...and why not? Water, holy or not, leaves no stain behind...mud's a whole n'other story.

An unfortunate fact is the ego-victory mindset is geared to the belief that mud can only be got rid of by slinging it back. That has never got anybody free, yet sling we will.

This is the test of the power of "thank you." When (not if) we get mud slung in our face, think "thank you" even as it hits. There. That's our invitation to know it as holy water...our "thank you" is the great transmuter.

Thank you.

FEELING R.I.D.? GET GRATEFUL!

Some days are just for getting through. Some hours, too...then, usually, it's just that the hour feels like a day. I'm guessing the root cause of that feeling is our getting up in our head, trying to fix whatever it is that we're not sure is wrong. I'm guessing the reason I'm guessing that is that's where I am.

It's interesting...reading the Gita is just ticking me off. I'd like to think that's because I don't understand it, but the fact is, it is perfectly understandable. It doesn't say a thing different from any and every spiritual book I've ever connected with.

Ah. There's the problem, I bet. I want different so I can go haring off hoping this newbie will fix me...this will take away my restless, my irritable, my discontent.

It won't, of course.

That's the big r.i.d. We'll never by rid of our restless, irritable discontent. That's how we get to learn gratitude for the less-than-wonderful of life. If it weren't for the r.i.d.'s, would I still be digging as much as ever? Probably not. I'd probably be drifting along, feeling bored, but feeling safe...nothing to threaten when I'm wrapped in the self-protection of nothing new to learn, think, feel, be. I got it. Gonna sit right here and not watch the world go by.

I am getting it. Restless, irritable, discontent is just code for the fact that still more spiritual growth is all we need be seeking. That's what the Gita told me AGAIN just this morning. And that's when a great big old yawn dragged itself across my face. And God laughed.

One thing I know...when God laughs, I can get happy for my world is about to change. If I keep looking at my world through my eyes, I'll keep myself deaf, dumb, blind...and discontented.

I am enchanted with the fact that all I need do to upgrade my world is to upgrade my attitude. I get grateful for my world just exactly as it is right this very minute, and voila! My world is new.

Thank you.

FINDING FREEDOM FROM SELF

I am awakened by a question: "Where do you get your authority?"

I answer, "I have no authority."

I realize that for the truth for each and all peoples of the universe. Not a one of us has any more authority than a new-born lamb. We have knowledge. We have desire. We have the ability to reason. All of which take us only as far as our own ego-victory limits allow.

There is a higher power which has all authority. That higher power is within each and all peoples of the universe.

We each have but one true goal in life...to awaken to our own personal higher power within our own self. If we seek, we will find it. We must beware for then and there is born a reasoning mind, ego-victory, goal...to claim that power as our own.

If we rest in the fact that we have no authority, we will ever be turned back to our one true goal...and there find freedom from self.

According to me.

Thank you.

JUST ANOTHER PARADOX

All miracle-work is not the work of a moment as so often men imagine. -- "God Calling," April 4.

I'm guessing all miracle-work is akin to priming a pump. A miracle doesn't happen in the instant of seeing the need for a miracle, and you can't get water from an unused pump the minute you need water. As a little kid out on the farm, I learned that in order to get water from a pump, I had to pour some water into the pump first.

I can see the similarity in learning to change my mind...which I consider miracle-work. I have come to believe that is the hardest thing we'll ever be asked to do...to simply change our mind. And we cannot do that by our unaided will alone...we must go to God initially. At first that kinda leaves us feeling like we're in no-man's land...can't change our mind by our unaided will alone, can't ask for self-determined objectives.

Here's where we "prime the pump." We show our willingness for God to change our mind by changing our line of thought...from God-please-cure-my-friend-now to mentally seeing a field of flowers, a butterfly, a rainbow...anything pleasing to the mind's eye.

It is in that willingness to focus on other than our wants that we detach from those wants, if only for a moment...because we will return in thought to what we believe needs to be fixed until we learn the relief of discipline. The discipline of repeatedly bringing our own mind back to God's wonders. There is no problem to be fixed when we're focusing on God's wonders.

This is how we learn that our mind does not control us, we control our mind...by ceding control to God.

Thank you.

WALKING FREE IN MY OWN MIND

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 29, 2012, and, interestingly enough, exactly where I am this very minute. Thank you.]

I am watching an interesting possibility hover at the edge of my ego’s worry zone. My unconscious desire is to dodge the thought, bury it, don’t go there…paradoxically, what is required is the exact opposite. Which entails bringing the possible fret into full conscious thought, to look it in the face and imagine the worst-case scenario…that it will happen and then the various ways I can handle it when it does happen.

The process always starts with my reminding myself that God has my back, He goes before me to make the crooked places straight, and He can and will intervene in my life on my behalf. That’s my “Welcome,” my kissing it on the lips, so to speak. Takes me out of the fix, brings God in, and I get to move on.

I have learned that my ego dwells in a state of self-protection and will always (1) assume the worst so that it can be prepared to defend against and (2) go haring off on endless trails of “if this happens, then I’ll….”

Having learned that, and particularly how much harm it does to my soul peace, I’ve also learned what is required is to not let my thoughts attach to these interesting possibilities in the first place. I, by myself, am incapable of not attaching…that’s why for me the first step in the process is to turn my thoughts immediately if not sooner to God.

This does not ensure that my imagined scenario will not happen…all that is ensured is that it is no longer a worst-case scenario. I have even had some of my imagined awfuls turn out exactly as I imagined them except they benefited me…indeed, turned out to be my gold.

So that’s where I’m going in my mind today…into my worry zone to gambol with the lambs of What If, Uh-Oh, and Oh No so I can walk free in my own mind.

Thank you.

PRAISE THE CURRENT UNDOABLE

Geez, I was blessed with the realization that every less-than-wonderful encounter is an opportunity for my own personal spiritual growth and, therefore, is divine. I felt humbled.

I have been trying with a will to walk away from that ever since...apparently...for my mind keeps going to people who need my clarification of a...or the...or their...or my non-existent problem.

It is good to know this is ego. It is equally good to know that ego will be with me until three days after I'm dead. It is better to know that the more I resist my ego, the deeper its claws dig into me. It is divine to detach from all of that.

It is to do spiritual wisdom...and to praise the current undoable for it is that undoable that ensures we keep digging.

Thank you.

EGO REDUCTION...AN INCH AT A TIME

Nearly a month back, a new acquaintance e-mailed me just making contact, suggesting we get together. I reply e-mailed, suggested lunch, and thought that was it, her turn now.  I got no response and felt like a real grown-up person when I went ahead and called her. And left word when she wasn't there (which I would credit me with an ego-denier except for the fact of caller i.d...there's no secret call-and-hangup anymore.)

Again, she did not respond, and (here's proof it truly is the teeny tiny little things that block me in spiritual growth) I mentally arm-wrestled with my better self for nearly two weeks before I contacted her the third time.

I did call her again, she answered and was delighted to hear from me, she'd gotten side-tracked, etc. It is amazing how right I felt about myself for denying my ego more than once.

What I need to remember is that she did contact me first, no doubt making it a lot easier for me to overcome my ego-resistance in reaching out repeatedly...or more than once. I like repeatedly...three times counts for repeatedly, and I'm taking it. A saint I ain't.

Thank you.