God is all there is all the time, everywhere, and within every condition and situation of this human experience, no matter what the condition or situation may be. The Spiritual Truth about all life in the Universe, including yours and mine, is unchangeable. Nothing about our spirituality changes no matter what appears to be going on. The Universe, and every living being within It, is now and forever the holy creation of God’s Love. Nothing in the world can change God. Nothing that happens in the world can alter God’s Love. In the Book of Hebrew we read, “Christ (God’s Beloved) is the same yesterday and today and forever.” God’s unshakeable, immovable Love remains forever present in you and me, and in everything we see no matter how unlike God some things may appear to be at times.
Ken Wilber wrote, “There is nothing but God, nothing but the Spirit in every direction, and not a grain of sand nor a grain of dust is more or less Spirit than any other.” Nothing—not covid, not cancer, not any human condition or situation—has the power to make any of us less Spirit than we are, even for a moment. Our Divinity doesn’t come and go according to the situations and conditions in our life because there is nothing but God in every direction of our life. God loves us eternally, and therefore no matter what may appear in our life at any time, there are gifts of Love for us to receive in the midst of whatever is happening.
The situations in our life won’t change by analyzing why they happen, by trying to figure out why someone doesn’t love us or isn’t nice to us, or why we’re having a financial challenge, or why we’re experiencing illness. Analysis causes paralysis as far as healing goes because it keeps us focused on outer conditions and limits our awareness of what can be to the appearances of what’s already happened. We could say we can only navigate our Divinity in positive ways through this human environment by using our Divine Guidance System, our holy intuition. Anytime we’re angry, resentful or fearful because something has happened in our life, or to a loved one, we’re unable to feel the reassurance of our Spirit, and the free-flow of Love that is caring for us and guiding us.
Acceptance of what’s happening in our life without resistance, without fighting against whatever it is, opens us to the Love and guidance of our Inner Being that always knows it’s all good right where we are. Acceptance removes doubt and we become more certain that Love will guide us through. As we remember who we truly are, we’re not afraid of navigating through rough waters. We feel Love guiding us from a more tranquil place within us. Accepting what comes with the awareness that what happens in our human experience has no power to change our Divinity empowers us not only to get through any situation or condition, but to grow in spiritual awareness and expand in spiritual self-expression because of it.
As we open our mind and heart to Love’s love for us, we begin to look within me for the gifts Love is offering to us within every condition and situation. We become clear that that each Divine gift is answering a call from us for a deeper relationship with our Inner Being. We resist the good we’ve asked for whenever we’re focused on thoughts and appearances that disagree with what we want to experience.
How do we know if we’re going with the holy flow of Universal Love’s givingness or we’re mentally resisting our good? It seems so simple, but it’s not always easy to remember. What doesn’t feel good to focus on, what doesn’t feel good to think about, doesn’t feel good because it isn’t good for us. It keeps our cork submerged, stuck in the muck of fear and limitation rather than floating freely on the joyous Ocean of Love. Good feels good to focus on, good feels good to think about, because it’s good for us. Positive thoughts let our cork float in the high, happy, healing vibrations of life where it is easier for us to navigate as the Divine Being we are no matter what the human circumstances may be.
But there is such a strong, Divinely natural desire within all of us to feel our unity with each other that we often join with others who have suffered in this life as a way of experiencing our oneness. Abraham-Hicks tells us that some people write music about heartbreak and books about traumas and tragedy because that is a big audience, and appears to make a bigger connection with others than songs and books about happiness. There even seems to be a camaraderie among those who have experienced covid, either in their own body or through the experience of a loved one. Our deeper desire to connect with each other seems to make us want to share the details of symptoms. That is why it is vital for us to be aware that our sympathetic conversations of commiseration inadvertently perpetuate the very conditions in this world that none of us desires to experience again. We need to be willing to let past experiences go, no matter how dramatic or compelling those experiences may be, or how curious others may be about them. If we’ve prayed to manifest the Truth of our Divinity, we must live in the here and now of answered prayer. Abraham-Hicks tells us, “That was then, this is now. Don’t talk about it anymore. There’s no point in beating the drum of anything you don’t want to repeat.”
“Trending” is a popular term these days. Thirty years ago, before the development of social networks, it usually referred to what was happening in the stock market or in the field of medicine, or to a sudden increase in the popularity of something that was causing more and more people to focus on it. Such trends were described in newspapers without controversy, and reported by anchormen without opinions. With the addition of Social Media “trending” means a lot more. Social Networks have created a whole new platform in which trending topics can be talked about by anyone and everyone, and influenced solely by opinions. A trending topic is something that is hot news or hot conversation within the general public. It’s something everyone seems to be talking about and everyone has an opinion about. On Twitter when a word, phrase or hashtag has been used multiple times, for whatever reason, it becomes a trending topic. Twitter even has section “Trends for you” combines the most popular words and phrases with whatever Twitter thinks you’ll have an interest in.
We’re told that we should be interested in trending topics; that we should be aware of what’s being talked about, and join in the conversation because following trending topics, and giving our opinion, gives us a personal voice and a greater connection with others. But if we want to be a deliberate creator of our own experiences in this earth life, we need to tend to our own trend. We’re always trending in either a positive or negative direction through the vibration of our thoughts. But we’re not always paying attention to, or tending to, what we’re focused on. We can’t trend in a positive direction that is inspired from within us if we’re following the negative trends of the world. Joining in opinions and conversations of anger, opposition and conflict keeps us focused on the situations in front of us. Negative thoughts cause us to dwell in the lower vibrations of fear that cause more negativity to trend in our experience. Positive thoughts cause us to trend upward into the high healing vibrations of joy, love, gratitude, peace, and well being.
We tend to our mental and emotional trend by becoming aware of how our thoughts and conversations are causing us to feel. We tend to our trend by noticing how much of our mental vibration we offer to our Divinity in each moment, no matter what may be going on, and how much we offer to what we see in front of us that might be appearing as sickness, sorrow, lack, limitation, conflict, or confusion. The more we focus on a challenge, the more we tend to trend toward similar challenges. But, if we’re paying attention, and tending to how our thoughts are trending by noticing how we’re feeling, we can catch a thought that is causing a downward trend in the very moment we’re thinking it. In this way we can change it before it takes us in a direction we don’t want to go.
Complaining about what’s going on in this seemingly crazy world may seem logical, and even justified. But it won’t give us a new trend, or a new view in 2022. If we’ve been waiting for a fixed point on the calendar, hoping that it will bring about something new for us and world, it’s time for us to realize that the fixed point that will change things isn’t on the calendar, it’s within us. What trends in 2022 is up to each of us and what we decide to focus on and talk about. Nothing can be new until we see it that way.
Papaji said, “You are always free, but your attention is elsewhere. Just turn your attention to your Being and away from impermanent objects. What you are, is always Here.” If we want 2022 to be new for us, if we want to experience more peace of mind and more freedom to love, we must get in sync with the well-being of our Inner Being and stop living in fear. Who we are is always Here, always present within us no matter what may be happening in this human experience. We align with our Inner Divine by practicing feeling good, and by following the Guidance of Love within us no matter what may be trending in the world.
Tending to our mental and emotional trend allows us to be pulled by Love towards our well-being, not pushed around by fear. There is a peace that comes to our mind, and a serenity that settles in our heart, whenever we follow our Divine Guidance, even if no one else seems to be trending our way. When we’re in sync with our Divinity we are following the trend of Love. And, that trend is the trend that will change the world and make it new.
The beauty of December, with its Holy Season celebrating Christ’s birth on Earth through Jesus, is that it gives us the perfect opportunity to remember that the same Christ can be birthed through us too. All Life is Divine. The whole Universe is the Offspring of God, His One Creation, His Perfect Son. The Light of Christ, filled with God’s Holy Love for all creation, is the Life Force within all that exists, including us. We can deny It, we can ignore It, but we can’t live without It. Jesus was the great example, not the great exception, and as we get a better understanding of our true Self we, too, can live as Christ on Earth.
We read in A Course in Miracles, “In his complete identification with the Christ, the perfect Son of God, Jesus became what all of you must be.” Jesus did his part in bringing Christ Light into the world. That Light was so powerful way back then that It still shines today! But now it’s our turn to join that Light and become what we truly must be. The only difference between us and Christ Jesus is that he knew who he was and he lived that Truth undistracted by the world of appearances. If this world is to be transformed, it can only be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
The world needs Christ personified and active as much today as it did 2,000 years ago. We reverently celebrate the birth of Jesus today because we want the Christ Light that came forth through his birth to dissipate the darkness that seems to have fallen over the Earth today. But it’s up to each of us to be the Light Bearer. Christ isn’t going to pop into the world from somewhere else, or pop into our mind without invitation. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said, “You need to realize that you are scintillating light. You are not just a piece of flesh, bones and blood. You are light. When you understand this, then you will be free from whatever emotional turbulences you have. Serenity will dawn in you and you will get a better understanding of yourself.” Unless we invite the Christ in us to live through us, unless we let that Mind that was in Christ Jesus come alive in our mind, it won’t be possible for us to find Christ anywhere else. The second coming is our coming out party. No one can live the Christ in us, for us.
In The Way of the Heart we read, “You were birthed for greatness. You were birthed to shine forth such light into this world that the world remembers that light is true and darkness is illusion.” As Jesus walked the Earth, his awareness that he was the embodiment of Christ, God’s perfect creation, enabled him to see God’s perfection in the world around him. In his full acceptance of his Sonship with God, and his oneness with all of creation, Christ Jesus caused the shadowy forms, bodies of illness, and the crazy and insane of his day to disappear. Such is the Nature of Light and Its effect upon darkness. Jesus didn’t fight the darkness. His Light caused it to disappear. The world hasn’t gotten any less shadowy, less infected, or less crazy in last that past 2,000 years! It is our time to shine by remembering light is true and darkness is illusion. Such a memory keeps us from fighting the darkness. It keeps us from focusing on what we don’t want and talking to each other about what we don’t like. There is no record of Jesus having conversations with others about his fears he might catch any of the diseases that in those days, so many around him were dripping with. He wasn’t fooled by the appearance of sickness. There is no record of his speaking of the difficulty in forgiving the angry, unloving behaviors of others that were often directed his way. As far as we know he didn’t get all wrapped up in the politics of the day, though he was constantly being accused of breaking the law. He didn’t buy into the limitations that claimed God’s children could ever go unclothed and unfed. The Light of Christ shined so freely and brightly through Jesus because he was without fear, judgment and discrimination. His mind was clear, his words carried healing vibrations, and his actions were the very Presence of Love and Peace.
German writer and statesman, Goethe, wrote: “A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.” We may want to ask our self, “How does life look to me? What does life reflect back to me about the content of my heart?” Does much of life seem yucky to us? Do we find much of life distasteful these days with so many disagreeable people and behaviors everywhere? When life seems yucky, we spend a lot of time watching our step so we don’t step in anything “unsavory.” We’re all about negative prevention rather than positive attention. When life seems yucky to us we lose our appetite for life. We’re not enthusiastic or interested in learning something new. There is a famous quote from the Broadway play and movie, “Auntie Mame” that goes, “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Are we starving for something good to enrich our life, but insisting on focusing on the negative stuff? A mind filled with problems brings mental malnutrition. We miss the yummy goodies available to us in every moment of life because we’re not looking for them.
Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “First realize that your world is only a reflection of yourself, and then stop finding fault with the reflection.” That’s like blaming the mirror when we don’t like how we look! Everything we criticize in the world comes from the point of view we carry in our heart, and only we can change what we see. The good news is that when we decide to be more joyful than judgmental, more loving than fearful, and more peaceful than argumentative, life seems yummy and we can’t wait to partake of its richness. We bring enthusiasm to whatever we do. We attract people and events that are delicious to experience. Our individual life is so full and rich we don’t have the time or interest to criticize the preferences of others.
We could say, as Abraham-Hicks does, that rather than life being like a banquet where there are only some choices available to us, life is more like a buffet or smorgasbord where tons of choices are available to us. As we know, a good buffet has lots of things we like to eat, and plenty that we don’t like to eat. But we don’t get frustrated that there are things we don’t want to eat staring at us from the buffet table. We don’t feel compelled to put what we don’t want on our plate. We don’t worry the unwanted food might touch our food. And, we don’t look on the plates of those standing in the buffet line with us and say “eeew” if they choose something we don’t like. We just happily mind our own business and choose what we prefer. The Universe of thought is like an unlimited buffet offering to us an opportunity to choose anything to think about that seems truly delicious to us. We’re never forced to think a yucky thought, a tasteless thought, or an unpalatable thought. We’re always at choice. And since choices for individual thought are unlimited for everyone, and everyone is free to choose, surely there are going to be preferences of thought that others choose that we wouldn’t. But rather than our just happily minding own business, and choosing what we prefer with a “to each his own” attitude, somewhere along the line we’ve confused our preferences with “the only right way.”
What if there were only one color (our favorite), or only one song (our favorite too), or only one type of art and it was the type we prefer? If we were all the same in our human expression—indistinguishable rather than diversified, carbon copies rather than unique reflections of individuality—as much as we think we’d like everyone to be just like us, we’d be bored. We stimulate one another through our diversity, and it is through our choice to follow our own individual preferences, no matter what anyone else thinks or does, that we become aware of our power as a deliberate unique creator of our life. We get to choose the things we like, the thoughts that feel good when we think them, the words that feel good when we say them, and the actions that feel good when we do them. But we can’t exercise our freedom when we’re busy trying to limit the freedom of others.
To fight against each other is to forget that only light is true and darkness is illusion, and in that forgetting we lose sight of the Christ in us and in those around us. Bondage to illusion is yucky. Freedom from illusion is yummy! When we have no desire for anyone to do anything our way, life becomes deliciously free because we’re letting that Mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus. The Christ Light that lives in us right now, whether we let It shine or not, is the same Radiant Light of Christ that shined so brightly through Jesus as he walked the Earth. We are all children of the Light birthed for greatness, created to create the good, holy and beautiful. We’re free, if we choose to be, to live a delicious life filled with tasty thoughts, sweet words and luscious activities. Papaji said, “You are Happiness. You are Peace. You are Freedom. Be kind to yourself. Open your heart and simply be.” Then, like Jesus, we will become who we must be. The Light of Christ within us will see the Light of Christ in all others, and the world through us will be healed.
The beautiful autumn month of November, with its inclusion of an official Thanksgiving Day, calls to us to focus our attention on the positive creative power of feeling grateful just to be alive, one day at a time. This month offers us the opportunity to focus on the high vibration we emit when we feel appreciation, and how that vibration draws our attention toward more and more to appreciate in our self and the world around us.
There is a sacredness in our feeling “thanksgiving” within us before we say “thank you” to anyone for anything, so that our words come straight from our heart. A mantra of “thank you-thank you-thank you” is one of the most powerful mantras we can say in our life. The spiritual master, Mooji, tells us, “Just keep saying thank you. Don’t explain. Don’t complain. Just say thank you. Say thank you to existence.”
Giving thanks for our journey so far through life, feeling thankful for this time and place in our life, opens us to fully appreciate our existence in the present moment. When we’re thankful for the gift of being alive, we’re more able to appreciate the good we have now. And that appreciation allows more good to come our way and flow into what comes next.
Though Thanksgiving Day often calls our attention to people we love, and to the positive aspects of our life that we might have been taking for granted, giving thanks every day, and every moment throughout the day, uplifts us to a place in our mind and heart where we are able to feel the Love within us that has called us into Being. As we allow Its Presence to fill us to overflowing, Love through us flows into the world. Then Thanksgiving becomes a lifestyle, rather than just a holiday.
Abraham-Hicks tells us, “Love and appreciation are identical vibrations. Appreciation is the vibration of alignment with who you are. When you focus upon what you want, when you tell the story of how you want your life to be, you come closer and closer to the vicinity of appreciation. And, when you reach it, it will pull you toward all things that you consider to be good in a very powerful way.” If we want to know the direction our thoughts are taking us in life, we need to notice the feelings that are pulling us there. In other words, we need to become self-aware and self-observant as we live our life.
We know we’re on the path that leads to all things we consider to be good when what we think, say and do energizes us, brings us joy throughout our day, and brings peace, satisfaction and rest at the end of the day. If we feel agitated throughout the day, with unpleasant energy running through us, and at the end of day we feel exhausted, unsatisfied and restless, it’s an indication we’re heading in a direction we don’t want to go, one that is pulling us toward experiences we’ll consider to be not-so-good.
It’s essential for us to find our “why” in life: Why we get up in the morning. Why we do what we do all day long. What it is that motivates our thoughts, words and actions. If obligation is our motivation, our thoughts, words and actions will lack appreciation, that positive creative Force that makes what we doing spiritually worthwhile. Obligation creates resentment, and it won’t bring us the good we want no matter how good we look doing what we do. If fear is the reason we do what we do—whether it’s fear of not being loved and accepted, fear of not having enough money, fear of getting sick—since fear and Love, as A Course in Miracles reminds us, can’t coexist, we won’t bring Love into our actions. And our actions won’t bring the Love we desire to express as we do what we do. Even though what we do may be helpful in some way in pleasing another or easing our guilt, in helping us to feel less lonely, or helping us to get by financially, it is only by loving what we do, and feeling Love while we’re doing it, that we feel grateful for our life and pulled in the direction of our good.
We may wonder how we can feel grateful doing anything when we don’t appreciate the conditions of our life. How we can maintain positivity and an attitude of gratitude when most of the time we feel like a negative, down-in-the dumps grump. What if we’re experiencing health challenges that are limiting and painful, or we’re experiencing disharmony in our relationships with family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, or even total strangers? What do we have to be grateful for under those conditions? We can start by just being grateful that we have the spiritual option to let our self rise in an awareness of appreciation that is above conditions. In order for us to maintain an attitude of gratitude, our gratefulness must to unconditional. How do wewe rise in appreciation? By being grateful that we’re alive to feel gratitude. Feeling gratitude feels good to feel, and it creates a mental-vibrational environment that draws our attention to something good in any condition. But in order for us to notice our attitude in any given moment (just in case we want to change it), we must become self-aware and self-observant as we live our life.
Tibetan Lama Surya Das wrote, “Before speaking, notice what motivates your words.” In order for us to notice why we’re about to say something, it’s necessary for us to be aware of our thoughts and feelings in the present moment so we’ll know the motivation behind our words. Then we can choose the words that convey what we truly mean to say. Ambrose Bierce wrote, “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” So often we react to life through the force of habit rather than the Force of deliberate choice.
When we live our life by rote, mechanically and repetitiously, thinking, saying and doing the same things over and over again, we’re unaware of why we say and do what we say and do, or how we feel while we’re saying and doing it. When we have a routine for living our life that is so familiar and predictable that it doesn’t seem to require much thought, we don’t give it much thought. We move about our life unaware of what’s going on within us that motivates us as we move. It’s as if we’re mentally on automatic pilot, with old thoughts and old stories spinning around in our mind and making us numb to the present moment. We’re not considering that each moment is offering us something new to think, say and do. We don’t consider telling a new story about what we want.
Life doesn’t just happen to us, it happens through us, through the thought forms we give Life Energy to flow through. We’ll know if we’re going to like the forms and expressions that our thoughts are molding into shape by the way we feel. That’s why it’s important for us to find the “why” in what we think, say and do.
Love and appreciation are identical vibrations because God is Love and appreciates all that His Love has created. We are born of the One Love that is forever in Love with us. We are eternally the Beloved of God. When we feel appreciation within us, we’re in alignment with who we are because we are feeling the Divine Appreciation that Sources us every mo with all we want and need.
Spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, said “When we are in our true being, the purpose of life is to feel that every moment is the purpose.” When we are being our true being, we find our “why” and our purpose as a spiritual being for coming into this human experience becomes clear. It’s got to be a good purpose because God is Good and called us here. And, it is God that continues every moment to gift us with life. When realize we’ve already received more than what we deserve, and we realize that it has all come to us as a blessing and a gift, then the gratitude we feel becomes a prayer. Gratitude connects our awareness with the Holy Invisible that is not tangible, but existing—the Creator of the Universe, the Divine Presence that exists within all that lives. But, we have to change our attitude to one of gratitude, and rise to meet its vibration, to be ready to receive what we’ve asked for through our desires and prayers.
When we live this life unafraid to be grateful for it all (no matter how some of it may appear some of the time), when appreciation replaces the attitude “I just gotta through this,” then we become aware that there is always something to be grateful for right where we are. Appreciation allows our attention to be drawn to it because we’re in vibration with it. When we choose love of life over fear of any condition, we discover that Love is all around us because we feel the Love within us. Love becomes our “why” as we do whatever we do. It becomes the motivation behind our words and the Presence within our actions. If what we’re doing doesn’t feel good, we’re not doing it with Love.
What we experience in life is who we are being in life. If our “why” in life is to be our true self, we’ll find that it’s not just our purpose to be loving, but to be Love. And, that’s an awareness to be grateful for!
September has come and is almost gone, and it all seems to have happened in the blink of an eye! If we’re concerned that time is going way to fast, if we’re looking forward to happy events in the future, the good news is those events will be here before we know it! And, if we’re living a life we’re not enjoying, and the future looks like it’s going to hold more of the same, if we want to make positive changes in our thinking that will change what’s next, we can begin with this one affirmative thought: “Life is all good even when it appears to be otherwise, and my good will appear before I know it.”
We read in The Science of Mind, “God is Good and surely does not need that any man should suffer for Him or sacrifice himself to please Him. Man’s whole trouble is that he believes himself to be separated from the Source of Life.” The Source of all life is Good because God is the Source of all life. We are immersed in that Source right now. We are swimming in a sea of Pure Positive Energy that has no opposition to Goodness anywhere within It. The only opposition we’ will ever run into that could prevent us from living a life we enjoy living is us. It is our resistance to being happy as we are in the moments of our life, whether we like what’s going on in any moment or not. It is our insistence that something or someone must change first before we are happy that darkens our mind, saddens our heart, and keeps our good away.
If it seems we are experiencing the same negative events over and over again, repetitive experience can teach us that we need to change our thinking, try a more positive view of life that will give us different results. We’ve all heard the sayings: “Experience is the best teacher, Live and learn, When we win we win and when we lose we learn. But, experience teaches only the teachable. We must remain teachable if we are to learn something new from any experience. Otherwise, the future will continue to look just like the past.
Are You Teachable? Mooji tells us, “All these challenges that come to you are to get you to exercise and discern by using your natural power of consciousness.” If we don’t discern and learn, experience can’t teach us. We won’t see beyond the surface of things to the lesson of love just beneath it.
When we were kids we didn’t go to school to learn limiting things about the world, but sometimes we did. Some things were obsolete even before we learned them. We didn’t go to school to learn limiting things about our self, but sometimes we did. All of those things were untrue even before we learned them. Today we can easily see how much the world has changed in almost every way since we were in school learning about science, biology, medicine, and gender roles way back then. We’re not surprised the world has progressed and expanded in possibilities. And yet we may still insist that we have not.
Even though we’ve grown older, we may still be keeping the same old beliefs active in our mind like a old dog that doesn’t seem to be able to learn new tricks. All these years later are we still talking about what our parents and teachers did to us or didn’t do for us? All these years later are we still telling our self what we’re not able to accomplish and blaming others that we are not more than we are? How many limiting, self-sabotaging beliefs do we insist are so, how often do we argue for our limitations so that we won’t have to let them go?
Even though we may read books, and listen to teachers, who tell us that we are free to choose any good thought we want to and focus on it, and that it is our focus on a new thought that can change our life. How often do we refuse to focus on positive thoughts in the face of negative events that would change the outcome? We’re not meant to settle into a mindset, to stand still and make do with a negative view. We’re not “copers,” we’re creators!
Right above the stairway at The Life Enrichment Center is written “It’s all Good,” and no matter what may have happened in our life in the past or may be happening today in our life or the world, that still remains the Truth. It’s all Good because God is good and God is all there is—deep within us and right on the surface because even the surface could not exist without God. Our whole trouble is that we believe self to be separated from the Source of Life. Without the Pure Positive Energy of Life running through us, our physical form could not be. Without our Source we couldn’t think or feel, no matter what we’re thinking or feeling, even if we’re thinking we are separate from our Source and feeling alone. Even when we’re not feeling our Oneness with Goodness, the Allness of Goodness is still right there for us to feel, within us and around us.
Suffering in this world is possible, but its not mandatory because suffering isn’t mandated by the God of Love. We are all destined to live happily-ever-after eventually. But, the good news is, we can start living happily anytime we decide to. We don’t need to wait for “the hereafter.” We can trade in our complaining about life for an appreciation of life. We can create happy events to look forward to out of today’s happy thoughts and satisfied feelings. Appreciation for our existence as it is right now allows us to feel the happy now that will create a happy manifestation in the future, no matter what is happening now. But even if whole Universe backs our happiness and moves the heavens to bring about every good thing we ask for, if we’re not willing to receive our good, we won’t.
There is no reason on Earth for unhappiness except our refusal to feel happy. Happiness begins with us and flows out, so it’s not dependent on what is already out there. If we were to decide to trust that every step we’ve made since we came into this human experience has been the perfect one for us, we would be happy with our life rather than regretting what looks to us like past missteps of long ago or yesterday. Rumi wrote, “If God said, ‘Rumi, pay homage to everything that helped you into my arms,’ there would not be one experience in my life, not a thought, not a feeling, and not an act that I would not bow to.”
All we need to do is look at our life right now to see what we’ve concluded about life so far, at how the disposition of our thoughts, feelings and actions have manifested as our life—as the quality of our health, the nature of our relationships, the flow of our finances, and as everything else that appears to us as our life. So often we live, but rather than learn something new as we do, something helpful and more uplifting, something filled with greater possibilities for self-expression and positive life experience, we reinforce what we’ve already learned that hasn’t been so helpful, uplifting, or that has expanded to our view of our self in positive ways.
We can learn through experience that Life is Good and good to us, that we can do anything, create anything, overcome anything, remain happy as we do. But if we haven’t learned that yet, our mind may be filled with much we need to unlearn before we can experience the positive Power within us. Antisthenes wrote, “The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.” To be teachable, we must be willing to unlearn that which is limiting, but seems true about our self and life, so that we can experience the Truth of a Self that has no limits.
Whether we been off-roading along our Earth path, and find our self in tangled bushes of confusion, or we’ve been tip-toeing through the tulips wondering what all the fuss it about, every step we’ve made has been in the right direction and we can pay homage to it all. Mooji said, “You are never going to become I Am. You are never going to become the Divine Self. You are going to just keep on UN-becoming what you are not.” If we’re not willing to release and of what we’re not, if we insist on the legitimacy of a self that is separated from the Source of Life, if we persist in telling the same old stories about our limitations to our self and others, we’ll never un-become in our mind what we’re not, and we won’t experience our Divine Power while we’re still living in this human experience. We won’t be able to accept who we already are because it will feel like too big a leap to take in our mind from the limited one we been insisting we are for so long, the one struggling to become spiritual, to the Powerful Being we already are, the One created to create a life that is fun and satisfying to live, a life that is beautiful, happy, healthy, and always growing and expanding no matter our age.
Until we accept that life is good and good to us, we human adults will continue teaching the children of this world—through our conflicts with each other, our judging, blaming and resenting one another that fills the media and perhaps our household as well—that which is untrue about themselves and life that they will have to unlearn on their own one day. Unless we can unlearn it first and become teachers of peace, compassion, tolerance, and love. Mooji said, “The greatest healing would be to wake up from what we are NOT.”
No matter what the condition or situation may be, one of the most powerful questions we can ask our self is “What can I unlearn from this?” If past experience has seemed to confirm for us that life is meant to be a drama-filled struggle, and that happiness isn’t the Universal plan for the living, then it’s time for us to “beg to differ” with that conclusion so that what comes next for us, and the children of this world, will be different, and far happier, than anything that has come before.
In this relative world of duality and opposites, winning not only creates winners, it creates losers. We can’t have one without the other because winning is a competitive thing. We define it as beating someone else. Whether it’s in business, sports, or any other contest, the winner triumphs over the competition, charges ahead of the opposition, or out-thinks the challenger.
When we win in this world we feel good about our self, and we may even brag a little. When we lose we often feel bad about our self, and may complain a lot! Feeling like a winner creates confidence that Life is on our side. Feeling like a loser creates self-doubt, and often self-pity, because we’re convinced that Life is against us.
We read in the Book of Romans, “What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” How we respond to people, conditions, situations, and events in our life is our choice, and it is the choice we make that works for us or against us. We can choose to respond with trust that if God is for us we have all we need in every moment to get us through with flying colors. Or we can choose to respond with fear convinced that there is some power that is opposing our good and keeping what we need from us.
If we were to judge our self, and what we are capable of accomplishing in life, by the fluctuating situational facts of this world that can go either way in any moment, it might seem to us the problems in our life are beyond our ability to respond with confidence and positivity. The challenges that seem to keep coming our way may seem to have the power to stop us from succeeding and living a life in which we feel healthy, happy, peaceful, and free. In this world of contrast and opposites we’d all be winners if there were no losers. But, as A Course in Miracles reminds us “The world is insane, and what can be expected from insane premises but insane conclusions.”
It is important for us to remind our self every day, and often throughout the day, that we do not live at the whimsy of this world. We live by the Authority of God, and God is always for us because God is Love. There are not winners and losers in a Universe without opposition or separation. Because we are One with a Pure Positive Energy of Love that created us to win by supplying everything we need to succeed at being the Being we are, only God has boasting rights to our successful self-expression here…and hereafter.
The spiritual teacher, Osho, said, “Love is the first step toward the Divine, surrender is the last, and two steps is the whole journey.” We win, not by charging ahead of each other but by surrendering to the Love that embraces us all. We make our Earth Journey hard, long and tiresome, repeating the same steps over and over again, getting nowhere. Whereas, as a Divine Spark of Holy Light in human form, we are here not to keep tripping over our own feet, and not to compete with the world and each other, but through our self-expression to extend and expand the Love that created us, and share it each other. We came to live in Joy that adds Joy to the world, and to live in Peace that adds to Peace on Earth.
Deepak Chopra wrote, “Surrender is faith that the power of love can accomplish anything even when you cannot for-see the outcome.” We came into this human experience to learn through the unique way this diverse and contrasting environment can teach us, to trust the Universe by surrendering to the Love that created It and us in It. When we learn to trust that Life is for us, we gain greater awareness of our Divine Identity as the Thought of Universal Love in form.
Earth Life as a borderless classroom designed for the learning we came to learn. Everyday this living classroom gives us an opportunity to gain greater inner knowledge about who we already are and what our relationship to each other already is. Everyday, if we choose to take them, we can learn powerful lessons of Love. We feel it within when we’re ready to learn those lessons, and we feel it within us when we’re not. One is a feeling of excitement and possibilities, while the other is often a feeling of self-doubt and even dread.
It’s not like like the days in school when we often felt forced to learn things we weren’t interested in. We’re here in this Earth Class to learn lessons that we, alone, call to us along our Earth Journey. Every relationship, condition, situation, and event, no matter what it is, is there to help us to win greater freedom to express more and more of the Being within us that desires to express as us. Buddha said, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” But sometimes it seems our lessons come to us whether we’re ready or not. Sometimes we don’t feel like learning from a particular challenge, we feel more like blaming the world and those in it for challenging us. When we do, it’s like being in school and blaming our teacher or the other students for our poor grades.
When we resist learning the very lesson we’re asking to learn through the vibration of our thinking, life becomes a struggle. And, as we struggle against life, we miss the higher lessons that the challenges in our life are there to teach us. When we look at things that go well in our life as a matter of good luck, and the things that don’t go well as a matter of bad luck, we cheat our self out of experiencing a greater awareness of the Divine Love that is always for us.
Osho said, “If you trust, everything that happens will help you grow. Life will provide you with everything. Whatever you need at a given moment, you will be given fair at that moment. This is the beauty of trusting. Little by little you’ll see how existence gives to you, that it takes care of you. You are not indifferent to existence. You are not ignored by her.” Everything that happens will help us grow, if we let it. When we trust life is for us and takes care of us, everything that happens teaches us exactly that. If we want to feel a sense of well-being, peace and ease in our mind, if we’ve been longing to feel Love and Joy in our heart, every life situation has a lesson of Love within it designed especially with us in mind.
The Persian Poet, Rumi, wrote: “There comes a time when nothing is meaningful except surrendering to love.” If we can remember that everyone in this human experience with us is here to live and learn just like us, we can learn what we desire to learn from everyone around us. And, then we can demonstrate what we’ve learned of Love by expressing the compassion, forgiveness, kindness, reverence, humility, peace, and happiness that flows naturally from the Love within us into the world around us.
The Dutch Priest, Henri Nouwen, wrote: “Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I may not feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity.” We’ve never been hurt by trusting Love. We’ve only been hurt by those who could not offer It to us. It takes trust to surrender pain when what we want to do is blame. But we hurt our self when we withhold Love. It takes trust to surrender to Love when we can’t for-see the outcome. But when we surrender to Love in any given moment we win because we learn the lesson of Love we came here to learn.
