HUG IT AND KISS IT AND LET IT GO

Your motives and aspirations can only be understood by those who have attained the same spiritual level. -- "God Calling," May 14

It is a rude...and wonderful...awakening to read that sentence and realize s/he who I'm thinking cannot understand me because I am so spiritually advanced may be in the exact reverse...as in, s/he is the advanced one.

It is rude only to my ego Lucy, but it is wonderful in that it turns my thinking away from the opaque (me trying to change your mind) to the transparent (opening to God's changing my mind). I suspect that is so difficult because it asks that we be willing to give over, not win...lose in a word.

The discipline comes in training our thoughts to neither make the remark okay...s/he didn't mean it, I misheard...nor to imagine even snarkier toppers, personalizing thus justifying our less-than-wonderful response.

Bottom line, never fail: We train our thoughts to go to God and the things of God...for instance, we can think of lilies of the valley, puppy dogs, rainbows. They all work. In other words, it requires that we not think of the snark or the snarker at all. Loose it and let it go.

I'm guessing it is the human condition that makes it so difficult to be willing to deliberately give up an agitated, irritated, peeved mind in exchange for a mind filled with love and laughter...at peace.

There it is...the difference between self-determined goals and God's will goals is the difference between wanting to get and needing to give.

Again, loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

KNOWING IT vs TRUSTING IT

Say 'all is well,' Say it not as a vain repetition. Use it as you use a healing balm for cut or wound, until the poison is drawn out, then, until the sore is healed; then until the thrill of fresh life floods your being. -- "God Calling," May 12

There...according to me, that is the short, sweet and on-target recipe for letting go of our self-determined objectives (which, too often, is all an affirmation is).

All is well is an affirmation. It is our intention that must change. If we're saying "all is well" and thinking "because I need to get a new car, my bills paid, a reformed spouse...," then, no. We're just going down ego's well-worn and  wrong road again.

When we're praying "all is well," with God's will being our only goal, we are quieting our mind, detaching from our ego-thoughts. That is opening to God's will which already flows within us. We are being lifted into spiritual consciousness where, indeed, all is well.

That is the difference between affirming in order to get and affirming in order to realize. Learning the difference is how it comes to be that we can trust that our Father knows our needs.

Thank you.

ON FINDING THE WAY

[The following is a reprint of my post of September 17, 2014.]

The way of uncertain future and faltering steps. It is My Way. Know that you will be led. Know that you will be shown. - "God Calling," September 17

There it is. There is the fact of faith..."uncertain future and faltering steps" is the Way.

And, according to me, when still we weep and wail that our steps are faltering as we go forward uncertainly, that is the right way.

Call it the sausage making of still more spiritual growth...it might not be pretty, but that's only to the eye of the reasoning mind. We are being led away from the reasoning mind's sure and certain to our own inner knowing that we are being led, our own inner knowing that we will be shown.

There is no coming to believe and instantaneously walking free of self...doubt, worries, regrets. There is only walking through our doubts, through all that our own self throws at us. We're not getting to the other side of what worries us...no. We are getting to the other side of self...to that power greater than self.

Welcome the way of uncertain future and faltering steps...for there we will find the Way.

Thank you.

GO FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF PEACE FOR ALL

The 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart preached, God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.

We often hear that life is not easy, but it is simple.  For most humans, that's the problem. Same goes for Eckhart's statement. Simplicity. Detachment. For sure neither comes easy...that's probably because they don't require any deep thought. And analyzing shoots the whole thing in the back of the head.

 We learn the words, then the how-to, which allows us to believe we've got it...because we know it.  "It" is something akin to: Turn our will and our life over to the care of God, our personal God, and then trust it. Specifically, trust that our best can and will come through us to us. Now. 

And our reasoning mind howls...Well, it sure doesn't look like it. I've still got X, Y and Z, and I do not know how I'm going to deal with any or all of it, and I'm scared.

And God, a big fan of Groucho Marx,  says, Who are you going to trust? Me or your lying eyes?  

See, that's why it's so hard. Our ego, my Lucy, has a bigger mouth than God and, apparently, will not not use it. And there it is. If we are ever to have the peace we seek, we must continue daily practicing training our mind.  

According to Eknath Easwaran, Training the mind means establishing and maintaining...good, creative, consistently kind thinking. I'm convinced that consistently kind thinking may be the short cut to the peace of mind we seek...hey, maybe even world peace? 

Yet, who's kidding whom? Consistently kind thinking is another simple but not easy, mainly because it requires that we detach from our ego-victory thoughts. 

But what better reason to train our mind toward kindness than for the possibility of peace here and now...for all?

Thank you.

ON THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER THING

The following are various notes I have written  in my "God Calling" over the years. I feel grateful for the reminders, but, who's kidding whom, I'm mostly surprised that they hold true still.

When I throw shade on another, I invite that same shade back on me. Without fail.

When I extend myself for another...whether or not they know it...I better me...and I feel it.

My fear of financial insecurity came on in full when I quit giving to charities.

Not only are we the manufacturer of all our own woes, but we are the Source of all our own good.

Over the years I have identified this and that and the other thing as my nemesis.  In identifying my nemesis, I realized in 2017, My nemesis is me, beginning and ending in my own self interest.

To resist not evil transmutes evil (with gratitude to "An Interrupted Life").

Way back to JoB's screed: I have had the free-floating idea that this was part of her initiation, possibly our mutual initiation. Pondering that, I was mentally projecting others asking how I felt about JoB's screed, and I was arm-wrestling with God on how I could shoot a snark but with loving kindness. (And God said No.)  Instead, he sent a blinding flash of the obvious: I can consider that to be a part of her initiation and myself privileged to be a part of it, Ah, now to practice that.

What if life itself is our initiation?

Thank you.

THINGS LOOK BLEAK? LOVE AND LAUGH, BABY!

 I once believed that when my life seemed to be at 6s & 7s, that I was doing something wrong, and to the material world that may well be. But I've come to believe, on a higher plane, that is when I am unknowingly doing God's will...and I need only to trust him in this.

Over the last year or so, twelve friends (this includes my little guy) have left my life...most all by moving to another state, one through death and one through her own misguided anger (which I hope is part of our mutual initiation process, but she's gone and I'm glad, so be it).

Then starting in October of last year, I began to have trouble with my teeth...specifically, one tooth. My dentist fixed it to the tune of $2,000. Then in November, he retired, and in December, as I brushed my teeth, the new tooth (a crown actually) fell out in the sink. It's May and $4,000 later, and we're still working on that tooth, and last week another crown fell out in the sink.

My dentist is talking implants, and my ego Lucy is gearing up for her war dance.

As I awoke this morning, I started to pray for...and (God is so good to me) I remembered: When I pray for -- anything, I am going down that wrong road again. I quick thanked God for whatever, however, whenever he willed for me. I kinda wallowed in the knowing that my only thought need be  that God has my answer no matter the appearance...stay my mind on that fact...when it ventures out, pull it back with a thank you and know all is as it should be in my life right this very minute...Now.

Then I read my "God Calling," and here's a part of today's message: Doubt always your power or wisdom to put things right, ask Me to right all as you leave it to Me and go on your way loving and laughing. Not to put too fine a point on it!

I'm telling you God loves me sooo much.

Thank you.

WE'RE NOT SETTLING, WE'RE CHOOSING

More and more it is seeming to me that you must go beyond reason to love is our direct link out of self.

When we find our self resisting...and naming it you...we need to "go beyond reason" and recall that anything we receive from anyone is our own, not the other's. The minute we are negatively conscious of a remark, an attitude, a feeling...it is ours, we own it, the other's ownership has already transferred.

Here's the dividing line for receiving negative anything: (a) I know that I can accept this as my angel in disguise as opposed to your contempt or envy or hate or....  It is my choice how I choose to receive it, to hold it, to let it color my return feelings; OR (b) I'm neither stupid nor a patsy...I know what you meant by that look, that oh-so-innocent remark, that attitude, and I'd be a fool to take it.

Ah, but just because we are fully aware that it is our choice that will determine our walking around self for the day...or week...doesn't make the choice a cinch. It just proves the point that self-knowledge avails us nothing...nothing, that is, if we stay in self.

We must go beyond reason to love. Love is not a reasonable choice when we're met with our own idea of incoming ugly. That's what brings on that feeling that we're arm-wrestling with God... we know acceptance is the right answer, but contempt feels so good...so justified. And just shooting off one little snark....

Surrendering our feeling of self-centered justification (I won!) for the freedom from self (ah, we agree) cannot be transferred for use later...it's hard enough to remember it is not a matter of settling for, but a matter of being raised up...it must be lived daily. Now.

Thank you.