CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

I heard once a man say that his life had been governed by slight provocations...it was like an electric shock treatment. I could feel the awakening from my toenails up. I saw that that was pretty much the standard on which I'd based my life...shouting my battle cry as I left yet one more life, "You'll need me before I need you!"

Realizing that truth about me, along with the fact that all my problems can be solved by spiritual principles, has led me up a new and happier road.

I've learned that it is embarrassingly simple to live a life of peace...just take nothing personally. The hard part is that nothing, unfortunately, means nothing. That slap upside our head? Not personal. That gossip behind our back? It has nothing to do with us, personally...how could it when it is so patently untrue? Not personal.

Our ego's oxygen, however, is all about personal. Resisting personal attacks, real or imaginary, is Velcro to ego. It attaches to the attacks, and only a power greater than ourselves (and it) can pry us free...or pray us free.

That's when and where we get to turn, no matter how slightly, to that higher power within us, and seek another way of receiving this seemingly personal attack. The surest (and fastest) way I've found to get that new way is to shoot a thank you and quick think of things of nature...seashores, sunsets, pine trees, anything. It is transporting. Which, of course, is our goal.

As Fr. Richard Rohr says, "That which is not transformed will be transmitted." We do not need to be transmitters when we can be transformers by simply becoming willing...willing to change our mind.

Thank you.

THE FATHER KNOWS OUR NEEDS

The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord is broken, the bird cannot fly. -- Saint John of the Cross

The "anything," of course, is any self-determined objective...be it health, wealth, wisdom or love..."however much good there may be in it."

Just this morning I read, "Relinquish every material thing and receive it back again from God." Which to me is the same as the one, :"Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be added unto you."

Talk about your impossible dreams. Or maybe it just seems impossible to me because I can't get passed my wants, dressed up as needs... for others, of course! That's the trouble with wants... most often, they are ego-originated, ego-driven and the ego is the beneficiary. Especially when they look like they have another's well-being in them.

We can tell we're into ego-wants when we find ourselves praying for another's, say, health...all we need pray is, "Thank you for her health just as it is right this very minute." And then trust that God knows if the health needs fixing and just how to go about it.

In truth, the underlying desire, when we're praying for another's health, is for us...to help us not have to hurt for the other. When that's where our real spiritual growth is...in our deep feelings for another. "Thank you" again suffices.

Thank you.

THE PERPETUAL NOW

Notes to myself in today's Easwaran: 

"2008 - To serve others is God's will for me.

"2011 - To serve others as they want to be served

"2013 - To serve others as they need to be served

"2014 - To serve others are they need to be served according to God's dictates, not mine, not theirs...."

Ah, now I've gotten to the nut.  This requires us to live in the perpetual now...for only in the now can ego be silenced. Only in the now can God's blinding flash of the obvious be received.

It may be that a blinding flash of the obvious is the only thing that can override our ego's siren song for, obviously, it only enters our consciousness here and now.

Thank you.

GRACE OF GOD AND HELP FROM MY FRIEND

I took a leap of faith yesterday. I bought the Microsoft 8 package to upgrade my PC and a Tablet. I took the leap entirely because I was forced to, but what other reason is there really to take a leap of faith? 

Microsoft notified all of us XP users one short week ago that it was going to drop all of us on our heads, and after April 8 our computers were going to be utterly open and unprotected from liars, thieves, cheats and hackers. 

I am blessed with a wonderful friend who knows all there is to know about all there is to know having to do with computers so he went with me to pick out and buy what I needed. Then he installed it all. Blessed? Graced, I believe, is the word.

I have been working with desktop computers since 1984...30 years...that's impossible, isn't it? It's embarrassing for sure because the fact is I am still nine-tenths computer illiterate. So, I'm pondering that fact, along with the fact that I need to learn the Tablet and the new 8 because I tend to think I only use my PC for e-mails and this blog so it's not urgent. When I wrote out all the things I use it for, however...whoa. Enlightenment, in a word. It isn't just a "want" to learn, it really is a "need" to learn. Which cheered me up...I'm convinced wants are of self (we may get them, we may not), but needs are of God (if we need it, it will happen). 

Here's where I get to move my knowing that I Am that I Am from my head down to my heart and in to my gut. I am responsible for learning the Tablet and the upgrade, after which I need to remember unto reliance that It, God, is within me/without me, using my brain, my hands...me...to do the work. 

Just today I noted in the first sentence in my God Calling ("I am all-powerful and all-knowing, and I have all your affairs in my hands.") that long ago I had circled all the "I's" when I realized that that I lies within me...walks before me to make the crooked places straight, performeth that which is given me to do.

I only need to let go of my fearful belief that the entire learning unto doing process is dependent upon me. It is dependent on me and on my making myself available to God's mysterious power. I get to walk forward, stumbling and bumbling, but getting there, getting my right answers, doing it. All through the grace of God, my willingness, and a lot of help from my friend Mark.

Thank you.

SEEK NOT THAT WHICH YOU HAVE...USE IT

We do not need to seek God's forgiveness. We have God's forgiveness...God IS forgiveness. 

We need to seek that realization, that we already have God's forgiveness within us. When we realize that, it is released into our head, our heart, our body, our soul. It becomes our living experience. 

All we need in order to forgive ourselves is to realize God's forgiveness is ours...cannot not be ours. Our forgiveness, then, transforms as peace...within us, without us. 

We walk in peace.

Thank you.

TRANSFORMING AND UPGRADING

What you don't transform, you will transmit. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," September 29, 2013.

Interestingly, personal transformation is always of self, either our ego self or our consciousness of the Self within (known as a "raised consciousness"). In neither case is it possible to do it on our unaided strength...alone.

A down and dirty take on the whole process is: Upgrade your attitude, upgrade your problem. This is where we learn the lie in the saying that the only thing we can change is ourselves...which, in fact, may be the only personal thing we can't change. We can only be willing participants with God in letting ourselves be changed...in letting our minds be changed.

Our ego is our spiritual roadblock...we can never, and we will ever try to, make an end-run around our ego. That's why the Sermon is so daunting...it flat states that we need to do things our ego flat refuses to believe are good for us. As in, if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek. If someone steals your coat, run after him and give him your cloak. Forgive seventy times seven. Resist not evil. Crazy talk!

The secret is...again...that we cannot do those things on our unaided strength alone, but we cannot not do those things when we realize a power greater than ourselves as our core, as our strength, as our very being.

That's transformation...from self to Self. A transformed Self transmits love...only love.

Thank you.

ON THE NEED FOR A MENTOR

It would be an utter impossibility for you to experience God's presence and not have somebody during the day feel that he was benefited just by being in your presence. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p 875.

I love that quote but it's so beyond my reasonable expectations for myself that I just remind me not to pass on my ugly...my gold rule, "Don't be as nasty as you want to be."

It is way too easy for our ego to wrap itself in beautiful spiritual words and for our reasoning mind to believe that means we've got it.

When we start parading and preaching, we know we've made a U-turn into self again. We've crossed the ugly line when friends, non-friends...even our pets...start walking away from, not toward, us. Unfortunately, it's usually just a sense of withdrawing so we must be other-open to even pick that up. And there's our catch-22...we're totally into our ego's spiritual fantasy, thus undesiring (not incapable) of being aware of others.

This is the number one reason we all need a mentor. We need someone we have personally invited into our lives with whom we share our most intimate thoughts, feelings, words...and her sole purpose is to tell us the bald truth about ourselves from what she is hearing, the truth with no hair on it. This is a sacred trust so when she does tell us that truth, and our ego rises up in righteous indignation (which it will), our higher power can and will intervene on behalf of both of us. 

This is what Goldsmith refers to when he speaks of "experiencing God's presence." It cannot be discerned by physical means...but we know it. We know it in our mentor's words when that bald truth becomes words of piercing love that he did not know he could speak, and we did not know we could welcome. 

We have just become entirely willing. Now to maintain that willingness...by realizing a whole new level of letting go. 

Thank you.