Let Every Thought Include a Blessing

Never forget that mind is a tool to be used lovingly. If you do not use it lovingly, then ego will use mind for its own purposes. There is no time of day or night - whether you are working, meditating or playing, interacting with others or alone, that your experience cannot include love. One way to accomplish this is to let every thought include a blessing. If you are thinking of another person or group of people, bless that person or group. It does not matter whether these people are close to you, think kindly of you, or even know you. It is your own role in bringing love into manifestation that concerns you. If you think of an animal or an inanimate object, bless that also. If your thoughts are abstract and metaphysical, bless those concepts that flow through your consciousness. You may find yourself blessing people whose actions seem the very antithesis of love; or ideas that seem dangerous and evil. You may bless diseases and unhealthy spiritual conditions. Your goal is not to promote unloving actions or ideas, nor even to change them, but simply to bring the light of spiritual love to bear on them. They may change or even vanish, not because of your intention, but rather because their illusory nature cannot stand up to the abiding Truth that is Love. Shining light into darkness exposes the insubstantiality of darkness and the power of light. This is simply your perception of a natural law that always existed. There never was evil, or hatred, or disease; these were merely phantoms awaiting the light to dispel them.

For the last week or so I have had The Prayer of St Francis running through my head almost constantly. I was reminded of it again when I heard of Ron Roth's transition; and when I re-read Joel Goldsmith's The Art of Spiritual Healing. Each of these teachers emphasizes that we serve Spirit best when we acknowledge its power and stand out of the way. It is not our blessings that we shower upon the just and the unjust, but the blessing of Spirit to which we offer ourselves as willing instruments. If we seek to heal, then we must open ourselves as channels through which Love can flow into the manifest world. This is not meant to be a passive approach, but only the acknowledgment that without Spirit we are powerless. As instruments of Spirit, however, we can participate in the manifestation of profound goodness and the operation of boundless Love.

self awoke

self awoke in darkness,
troubled and alone.
to emptiness spoke desperately,
"make me better!"
silence followed.
from which Self replied,
"you are."

We Are At Choice

Every moment of our lives we are at choice. Mindfulness is essential not only to making right choices, but even to being aware that choice is possible.

Here are some of the fundamental choices we cannot avoid making in our everyday lives --

• The choice between acting (or not acting) out of love or out of indifference

• The choice between giving our best effort, or doing just enough to get by

• The choice between cherishing our bodies as temples of Spirit, or trashing them

• The choice between generosity and miserliness

• The choice between faith and fear

• The choice between teamwork and competition

• The choice between openness and isolation

• The choice between compassion and hatred

• The choice between Spirit and ego
  

• The choice between awareness and denial

• The choice between Oneness and separation

• The choice between mindfulness and unconsciousness

Even saints are human and don't make every choice in the way that brings them closer to Spirit. All that we can ask of ourselves is to remember that every action is a choice, and to take the time to understand just what our choices are.

The good news is that, like most things, this process becomes easier with practice. Practice staying awake, practice recognizing your choices, and practice making those choices that are consistent with your chosen Path. Finally, practice forgiving yourself for those instances when you stray.

Namaste.

Act Out Your Intention

If you experience a problem and only visualize the problem going away, you are missing an opportunity. Spirit may take the problem away, but not necessarily in a manner you would expect or appreciate. At best, you will be free of that particular problem but you will have added nothing positive to your experience. If you visualize yourself finding a solution, and then focus your efforts in that direction, you will become an active part of the process of manifesting the solution. This will bring your intention into alignment with the operation of Spirit, and your consciousness into closer harmony with All That Is. You are likely also to come to a solution that more completely fulfills your goals and needs as you participate in directing the flow of Good in your life.

Don't just go with the flow, be the flow.

Are We Responsible?

Joel Goldsmith emphasizes again and again that all power comes from God, and that human beings have none in their own right. This is consistent, with minor differences in terminology, with the teachings of most sages. How, then, are we who are still stuck in individuality to take responsibility for our own lives, our fates, and our spirituality?

One answer is that, while we as individuals are powerless, as individual manifestations of Universal Spirit we are all-powerful. The realization that all power flows from God is just a half step away from the realization that nothing, including ourselves, exists but in God. When through meditation we come to the secure conviction that we -- and all things -- are manifestation of the God-force, then it becomes possible to accept that the power of which we were made still forms the essence of our being.

Another way to visualize these principles is to recognize that power alone is meaningless; that only power coupled with intention is capable of shaping the God-stuff of All That Is into a Universe of stars and planets, matter and energy, stones, plants and animals.

Our individualities are created, not just of power, but of intention as well. We are blessed not only with the power of God, but also Its creative Intention. We are capable of directing the flow of events in our Universe by exercising that holy Intention to instruct the omnipresent divine power.

As an attribute of God, which is Love, the Intention can be exercised only to produce loving outcomes. All other events that appear in our experience represent only the random operation of a power that has not been subjected to the control of Divine Intention. The more perfect our sense of Oneness with the Divine, the more perfectly will our intention shape the Universe around us into an accurate mirror of Divine Love. This is why the awareness of Oneness is always accompanied by Love, security, and happiness.

The circumstances of our separate existences, as we experience them, are entirely within our control. To the extent we acknowledge, and seek to incorporate, our Oneness with All That Is, to that extent we cause peace and Love to manifest around us. To the extent we turn our backs on Oneness, we subject ourselves to the random workings of an impersonal and unfeeling power. These are the choices that each of us makes every day, every hour, and every moment that we are alive.

An Easter Grace

Blessed Spirit of the Universe,

We are gathered together to celebrate this festival of eternal Life. As we consider this feast we are about to enjoy, we know that no matter how much enjoyment it brings us today, our bodies will soon be hungry again. Therefore we pray that the physical satisfaction we feel today, and the hunger we feel tomorrow, both remind us of the hunger the Spirit within us feels for Oneness with you. May our ways be guided to the unending satisfaction that is Unity with All That Is.

And so it is.

Sitting in the World

Meditation in silent surroundings is very enjoyable. Since meditation is about focus, and most often that focus is directed inward, freedom from external distractions helps to maintain that focus.

When the subject of meditation is Oneness, however, there is a certain contradiction to the attempt to exclude "distractions" - indeed, even in the use of that term. If your intention is to experience unity with All That Is, then to the extent your intention is fulfilled, externalities by definition do not exist. All That Is means just that. The barking dog, the ringing telephone, even the strident television must somehow be incorporated in your experience.

Physical reality may exist only conditionally, but it is the milieu in which we have chosen to pass a portion of our existence. It is said that even a dream, as dream, is real. The world we see may be just the product of Universal Mind reflecting upon itself, but as a part of that Mind it exists in the same way that we do.

Seeking a quiet environment for meditation is useful as part of our training. It is difficult enough to release the ties that bind us to egoic mind when we sit in silence. Yet we must beware also the subtle egotism of restricting our Universe to the narrow confines of our own inner awareness. The consciousness of one individual, however expansive, cannot begin to encompass All That Is.

The awareness of unity can never be complete so long as it is confined to our quiet places or our daily periods of meditation. Oneness cannot be limited in time or extent. Enlightened Masters exist in permanent communion with the Divine Source, and have surrendered the illusion of individuality.

To consider the sounds, sensations, thoughts and feelings that pass through your consciousness in meditation as "distractions" is to impose an artificial limitation on your consciousness, to succumb to the dream of separation. When a bird sings, say to yourself, "I am that." Do the same when an airplane flies overhead or a neighbor starts his lawnmower, or when your mind wanders to thoughts of what's for dinner. Do not dwell or focus on any of these sensations, but do not resent or reject them either. Your experience of Oneness must include your entire experience, or it is also only an illusion.