GOD IN THE CHANGED MIND

A Truth: God can and will if sought.

How It Works: Change your mind about the end result of your want, i.e., how and when you get what you want.

Example: I prayed for a million dollars. I was gifted with a dollar. I thought, "Well, I'm not surprised...one lousy dollar isn't going to do me anything. Poor, pitiful, put-upon me. There is no God."

I Changed My Mind: I thought, "Thank you! This is a step in the right direction...if he can gift me with one, he can gift me with more than one. How can I help out?"

Fact: I'm still getting my million, one dollar at a time, but I have never gone hungry, I've never been without a roof over my head, and I've had enough to give something to others.

The Pearl Beyond Price: I haven't thought of myself as poor or pitiful or put-upon in a long time. That's worth more than a million dollars...that's priceless.

Thank you.

MY GRACE IS THY SUFFICIENCY

[The following is a reprint of my blog of December 13, 2009.]

“My grace is sufficient for thee.”

God’s grace is always available. It is not waiting for me to do, think, say some special thing…to earn it. Grace is mine now. God’s grace is the sufficiency I seek…all ways and always.

Just as air is not waiting for me to earn it…it’s there for the breathing.

Thank you.

OUT OF MATERIAL INTO SPIRITUAL

What we see is always ourselves.

It's never what we think it is...when we're fighting, struggling, resisting, after all's said and done, we're amazed to realize, the problem was within our own self to begin with.  And that's if we're doing it right.

If, however, we're thinking, "I sure showed him or I don't take nothing from nobody or she'll think twice before she comes after me again," we've just lost another round to ego.

What we see is always ourselves. There. That's the great cosmic truth, and the only way we ever come to believe that is by simply changing our minds...mental upgrade if you will. Out of the material into the spiritual.

In the reasoning mind world, developing healthy self-esteem is right up there at the top of our wish list. To develop healthy self-esteem we are taught that it is necessary to "take your own part," "stand up for yourself," "make yourself heard."

Healthy anything is better than unhealthy so we never negate healthy self-esteem, but we must change our minds about how we release our unhealthy and let our healthy walk free. Spiritual principles is the how-to key. Learning to live by spiritual principles, we walk free.

Remember...never forget...we must go beyond reason to love, and Eknath Easwaran's instructions for transforming consciousness (or, changing our minds) are profound. He writes,  "To begin...you have to look for the right spot [within yourself ]. In some people it is a particular compulsive craving; in some it is jealousy; in some, blind fury. Some may be fortunate enough to have all three." [Emphasis added.]

That is the nut, the going "beyond reason" core. For how can it make sense to feel "fortunate" to have compulsive cravings, jealousy, blind fury? We are fortunate to have these deep defects of character because nothing else would make us dig as deep as we must, trying to rid ourselves of them only to find complete defeat. This is our lesson...we can dig to the bone, but on our own we're not going to get free.

We must go beyond reason to a power greater than our own reasoning mind if we are ever to be free..."free of me." We must dig deep to be raised higher.

Thank you.

FREED FROM OUR OWN IDEAS

God protects us not from the belly of the beast; God transmutes the belly of the beast to our streets of gold.

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious takes me back to my first deeper realization of love...of the expandable, flexible nature of love. Love not just of other humans (or of another human, two at most), but love as a way of living my life. Filleted, in a word. Because that is what living love as we breathe does...splits us open, leaves us without defenses, invites any and all in...and showers us with joy immeasurable in the doing.

But we have to invite the filleted part before we can know the joy immeasurable part, and there's the stumbling block. I mean, consciously, who isn't going to try to make an end-run around the filleting, going for the joy?

For me, it's just like the biblical "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you." I could never not think of the added things first, all the while believing I was seeking the kingdom of heaven.

Maybe it all comes back to getting out of our reasoning mind...for we're not stupid, and getting filleted, willingly!, will never qualify for smart to the reasoning mind.

Here comes paradox to save the day! We finally accept that we have to become willing to walk utterly un-self-protected in this world if we are ever to know the utter security of love...of the love we have and have always had within us, waiting to be used.

When we become willing for God to do with us as he will, we are freed from our own idea that we can get the kingdom on our own terms...and we know love.

Thank you.

SPEAK THANK YOU TO GOD, KNOW PEACE

The miracle working power of "thank you" begins the instant we quit fearing that saying "thank you" will cause the disaster we're fearing to happen.

We've probably all heard about the need to develop an attitude of gratitude. I had heard that many times, seriously tried to practice it. I got stuck trying to feel gratitude for the roof over my head, for the air I breathe. My feeling was, I've always had a roof over my head, and everybody has air to breathe...what's in this for me?

Then one day I read, "Meister Eckhart said, 'If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.'”

Thank you as a prayer! I  knew in the instant that was truth.

I still had to speak it (repeatedly) and have it "work" "not work" "work" before I realized the full miracle. Thank you changes the fact of nothing. It does better than that...it changes our attitude about that fearsome fact.

Thank you in the face of a self-perceived disaster relieves us of our resistance...our panic, our self-pity...our rigid, righteous and right. There. Right there is where we are changed...for our fear at that moment is the God of our understanding. Speak thank you to God, to God in whatever form we perceive God to be...and know peace.

A good indicator of whether we're on the right track is when our reasoning mind says, "Huh?" "How?" "I don't get it." We remind ourselves, once again, "We must go beyond reason to love."

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF A NEW PAST

Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains and lying in your loving arms again.

Why that line, from one of my once favorite songs, came to mind just now I don't know. And the OMG is I'm not sure I remember the name of the song...it may be "If They Could See Me Now."

The words that went straight to my heart are "longing for the freedom of my chains." The first time I really heard them, I knew that was where I was living at the time...looking back and longing for the freedom of the chains of my compulsive-addictive-ego-self. I didn't know it then, but that's the place where my rues, regrets and remorses are born, live and, if not transmuted, only grow more vindictive.

Here's the good news: We can let ourselves be gifted with a new past! We do our part, as in we clean up the wreckage of our past, make our amends, atone, forgive...then repeat each of those daily...and by our actions, the God of our own understanding flows forth.

There. That's where, what, why and how our rues, regrets and remorses are transmuted, are revealed as our gold. There's our gift of a new past. 

Without that as our goal, we have become a loving person whose joy is in others. In the peace, love and joy of others. Which showers peace, love and joy on us. 

God is so good to us...for only God could make such a transition.

Thank you.

GO WITH GOD AND BE

More and more I am learning that our wants, our hopes, our desires are in reality our blocks, our stonewalls, to experiencing that which we're wanting. As long as we're praying for anything, we are believing that we are in need of it, that we don't have it. That is the block to our realizing it is already ours.

We hold our deepest desire out in front of us, praying for it to come to us when, in fact, there is nothing we are seeking that we don't already have within.

Once we get the quiet word that what we want is already ours, that we just need to look within to find it, we waste a lot of time trying to make that come true. No...it already is! It is ours to do, to experience, to show forth, to be grateful for.

And the cynic wonders..."So where's my billion bucks? I've looked within and it ain't there." That's why the cynic only lives in the reasoning mind...there is no cynic in God's world. And as long as we're relying on the reasoning mind, we will keep wanting, wishing, desiring our good to come to us. And sometimes it will, sometimes it won't...but even when it does, it's not quite right. Off by a hair. Or it turns into the proverbial, "What was I thinking when I asked for this?!"

Go with God and be the good you want. For the source of our billion bucks is within us...the source of all our good is within us. There from before conception, there now, there three days after we're dead.

Now to live that.

Thank you.