Are we willing to give birth in our mind to the idea, and birth in our heart to the feeling, that the same Christ that lived as Jesus on Earth, the same Christ of Christmas so long ago, is within us right now? If we allow It to, that same Christ that already lives spiritually, energetically and vibrationally as us in the non-physical realm of our Inner Being will shine through our physical form on Earth as well.
The Christ is the Infinite Son of God, God’s One Eternal Creation. It carries within It the Power of God’s Will. God creates everything through the Energy of The Christ. “It’s all in His Hands.” Everything that is created through our life is in the hands of the powerful spiritual energy of our Inner Being. Abraham-Hicks tells us of our relationship with The Christ through which God creates worlds upon worlds, including our world: “You’re not manifesting; you’re creating the environment that allows the manifestation. You create the vibrational atmosphere which equals your vibrational point of attraction and then the Law of Attraction matches you with the things like you.”
Without our awareness of our oneness with the Creative Power of Christ in us, in our ignorance of our need to maintain a positive attitude that creates a vibrational atmosphere that allows our good to manifest in our physical life, we may inadvertently create a mental-emotional environment that keeps our good from coming into our physical view, one that pinches us off from what we want and causes us to see and experience what we don’t want instead. It’s all in our vibrational hands—2022 has been up to you, even when it seemed at times to be up to someone else, because no matter what appears to us physically, as we read in the Book of Hebrews, “Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
What appears to be (to us) depends on what we’re looking for, and the awareness with which we are looking. Our mood and attitude about our self in life, our feelings about self and life, the way we believe things go for us, and whether or not we trust that things work out for us, all affect how experience of life. We see what we expect to see. It’s not what’s there, but how we feel when we see it that creates our experience of whatever it is; it’s not what we think but how we feel when we think it; and, its not what we do but how we feel when we do it that creates our mental-emotional atmosphere. A good question to ask our self may be: “Do the things ‘like me’ that the Law of Attraction has matched to me, which I perceive and experience as my physical life, reflect a being who is positive or negative?”
Much of what occurs in this world is generated by fear and by the desire to protect “against.” Fear is resistance to the natural Flow of Well-Being that is natural to us. When it comes to experiencing the good we want, trust keeps our mental-emotional pathways clear and flowing, while fear blocks our view and keeps our good from coming through. Optimism and pessimism are habits of thought. Optimism is a habit of intentionally choosing to feel good about our self and life no matter what. It’s a choice to look for the good and praise it, even before we see it. Pessimism, on the other hand, is a knee jerk reaction without concern about, or an awareness of, how our default mood and attitude affects what we experience.
There’s a wonderful Christmas story about the parents of twin boys who set about to prove the point. They’d noticed that the only resemblance between their twins was their looks. Otherwise, they were totally different, even opposites. It seemed that no matter what was going on, one twin was always optimistic and happy, while the other had an attitude of doom and gloom. Nothing the parents said or did seemed to affect either one of boys’ moods, so the dad decided he could at least try to make things interesting: On Christmas Eve while the boys were gone with their mother to a Christmas pageant at church, just to see what would happen, the dad packed the pessimist’s room with all the latest toys and games. Then, he loaded the optimist’s room with horse manure borrowed from a neighbor. (He piled it high on a vinyl drop cloth so his wife wouldn’t object to the experiment!) When the boys got home, the dad told them that Santa had left presents for them in their rooms, and they ran off to discover what Santa had left for them. It wasn’t long before the dad heard unhappy sounds coming from the pessimist’s room. When he walked in he found the boy sitting in the middle of all the new toys and games, crying bitterly. “Why on earth are you crying?” the dad asked. The boy whined, “Because I’ll have to read all these instructions (& he tossed them in the air for effect) before I can do anything with this stuff!” The dad nodded his head, and as he left the room he heard giggles coming from the optimistic twin’s room. When he walked in he found the boy dancing for joy in the pile of manure. The dad shook his head and asked, “What are you so happy about?” The boy said with a smile, “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”
If this year so far has looked more like a pile of manure than all the good things we wanted, the good news is there’s a pony in there somewhere, and it’s not too late for it to show up. God creates everything through the Energy of The Christ, and God is Love. Everything we’ve asked for, everything we’ve prayed for, all we want and desire has been answered with a “Yes” by Love, Itself. We read in the Book of Corinthians, “Love never fails,” but often we fail to see that’s true.
So where is that “Yes” that hasn’t appeared to us in physical form this year? Right where we left It. Right where it’s always been, within us—the perfect vibrational response of Love to us that matches who we truly are. Love never turns us down and never turns away from us. If we haven’t experienced all we wanted this year, we’re the ones that have turned away and spent our precious time focusing on the lack of whatever it is.
In order for us to experience physically what we want, we’ve got to cooperate with the “Yes” of God by creating a vibrational environment that allows it to come into our life. We create that atmosphere by feeling the joy of answered prayer, by feeling the inner presence of what we want, by feeling the fulfillment of our desire, by anticipating its arrival in form and expression, and by looking for it in every moment. Then we are being a vibrational optimist, which is another way of saying that we’re being a cooperative component in our own life. We can’t wait until we see it to believe it’s ours, or we won’t see it because we must believe before we can perceive. We have got to give whatever we want the power of our belief so it can manifest before our eyes. How do we give what we want that power? We start by believing in its possibility, then by allowing for its probability, and then by opening to its reality. It’s up to us to let our desires through.
The Creative Power of the Universe is generated by Love. All we want is given to us because Love wants for us what we want for our Self. No matter how uncooperative we’ve been with the Truth of who we are, no matter how much we’ve allowed our thoughts to pinch us off from experiencing the Joy that belongs to us as a spiritual-vibrational being, still the Law of Attraction never fails to match up our Inner Being vibrationally with something good. In this very moment our Inner Being holds our gifts. All we want for the rest of this year and into the new year, and in the years to come is there for us in perfect vibrational condition, secured for us by our Inner Being. How much joy, love, peace, creativity, financial abundance, health, laughter, ease, and well-being are we willing to allow to express as us while we’re here?
Next Sunday, January 1st, we’ll be offering a burning bowl ceremony as part of our Service. It’s a beautiful ritual to help us decide what old thoughts and attitudes we want to let go of and symbolically see go up in smoke. It can help us decide what new thoughts and attitudes we want to cultivate and practice in order to create a higher, more free-flowing vibrational atmosphere in which to live. The Way of Transformation gives us a beautiful resolution to consider, powerful affirmation that we can live by: “From this moment forward, I walk and live as one who chooses to use the power of mind, the power of awareness, the power of intention, the power of clarity, the power of being itself, to know the Truth that sets all things free. I choose to be the Truth that allows freedom to be extended to all others. I choose to walk upon this plane, while yet the body lasts for a little while, as that One who has been sent forth as a ray of light to shine light into a world that has feared it.”
On Friday night at our Holiday Sing-a-Long, our Santa who, in addition to sharing his bag of candy, shared uplifting words with us about the meaning of Christmas. He said it is season for giving and for sharing the Love that we are with others. And, throughout the evening with us, he demonstrated just that! But Santa wasn’t finished for the night. The following story was related to me by the sleigh driver who transported Santa to and from LEC: As the sleigh driver was preparing to take Santa home, Santa asked if they could stop at Big John’s on way so he could buy a steak and onion sandwich for Mrs Claus. As he stood in line at Big John’s, Santa continued his goodwill-to-all message to everyone around him, and they seemed convinced he was the real deal. After all he was jolly, friendly, filled with kindness, and his white beard that grew right out of his face!
When he got to the counter, Santa asked the employees if they’d been good. But before anyone answered, a young man, about 13-14 years-old, who standing to his left at the counter, said “Santa I’ve been good, really good, all A’s and B’s this year.” Santa said, “That is good! What school do you go to?” The young man said “I go to school in Lansing, but I’m here this weekend visiting my dad.” So Santa reached into his generous pocket, pulled out a twenty dollar bill, and gave it to the young man as he said “Merry Xmas.” The young man’s eyes got really big as he said, “Thank you so much!” and tenderly put it in his pocket. After the young man left, while Santa waited for his order, a tall man walked into Big John’s with a “neck gaiter” pulled up so just his eyes were visible. He towered over Santa as he walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said “You’re the guy who gave my son the money, right? I want you know that it meant lot to him, and to me. Thank you.” Then he left.
But this story doesn’t end there. Before Santa paid for his order, he asked how many employees were working. A young woman behind the counter said, “There are four of us tonight.” Santa, feeling the spaciousness of giving, said “I just happen have four $20 bills in my pocket, and he handed one to each employee with a jolly “Merry Christmas.” After Santa and his sleigh driver got back into the sleigh, the sleigh driver asked him how he felt. He said, “Wonderful! There’s something that happens to me when I put on this suit.”
There is something wonderful that can happen to all of us in any moment we see our self differently, in our true Light, when we feel more free and more spacious as a being, i.e., when we feel The Christ rise up in us and we see Christ in everyone around us. Anytime we feel Joy bubbling within us, and anytime we let Love inspire us, we are feeling The Christ in us. We read in The Way of Transformation, “Then we walk this Earth as one who is free, and one who is the spaciousness through which only Love abides and is offered.”
Words don’t teach. Example lives, where only Love abides and is offered, teach. When we live by example, when we walk-the-talk, when we speak from inner experience rather than words we’ve read or heard, we proclaim Christ on Earth. We “Tell It on the Mountain,” so to speak. Something wonderful can occur in us, and through us, as we give birth in our mind to the idea, and birth in our heart to the feeling, that the same Christ that lived as Jesus on Earth so long ago is there in us to live as us on Earth as well.
The Christ of Christmas is The Christ of Creation, the One Creation that includes all who live. The holy birth of Jesus, and the life that followed, was an example Life that proclaimed for all of us that the holy Son of God can walk the Earth in human form. The Christ of God’s Creation is the Pure Positive Energy and Power of Heaven that is also the essence of every temporary physical manifestation on Earth. The Christ is everywhere, including right where we are, and as we become more aware Its there, the Christmas story of Christ on Earth, and the givingness of Santa, become our story as well.
The Christ, God’s One Creation, fills the whole Universe with Joy in every moment as It always has since the beginning. That’s a call for celebration! Ours is a shared identity with the whole Joyous Universe, with All-That-Is wherever It is, and that’s a call for celebration! One Creator, One Creation. One Father, One Son. We are all One with that One, or we wouldn’t be here or anywhere else. Of the Creative Power of The Christ that belongs to all of us to demonstrate the good, the beautiful, and the true; of The Christ in us, as us, whose purpose it is to expand and extend Creation forever, we read in the Book of John, “God created everything through him and nothing was created except through him. Everything was in his hand, and without him not even one thing was made that has been made.” In our human confusion about our true spiritual identity, through the choices we make we can make a mess of our individual human life and the world we live in. But The Christ in us can only create the good, beautiful and true because we’re created to create for God as God. Nothing else has meaning in the Universe. Nothing else is real in the Universe. And THAT’S a cause for celebration!
When we consciously join in our mind and heart with Universal Joy, Love, Peace, and goodwill to all, when we live with the awareness we are a spiritual being, we speak from that awareness and act from that awareness, so that whatever comes through us is a creation for God, and the whole Universe is blessed. It is necessary for us to open our mind and heart to the Truth that we are God’s child, to mentally “put on our Spirit,” so to speak, so that we feel just like the holy One of God’s Creation.
We’ve got to want to claim that Truth and unconditionally focus on that Truth if we are to live that Truth and by example proclaim Christ on Earth. We read in the Book of Romans, “For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.” That revelation is a moment to moment choice of Self-expression. The Christ is always there for us to choose to Be, and for us to see. Its that unchangeable place within us where all that is beautiful, good and true lives without judgment; that place where all are fully loved by us because All-That-Is is forever unconditionally Loved by God, and we are created to create for God as God.
All that we need to do to feel the Joy of the Season, to share the Love that we are, to feel more free and more spacious as a being, is to put on those Holy Clothes that can only be found within us. If we decide It is what we want to feel, and then focus on thoughts that cause us to feel that way, thoughts that inspire forgiveness, compassion, generosity, sweetness, and kindness will direct our words and actions.
Every thought imaginable, every feeling possible, every action feasible is available to us, ours for the choosing. We are free to choose to shout our judgments of displeasure from the bowels of Earth, but we are also free to allow the high holy Vibration of The Christ to rise in us. And, if we do, we can’t help but shout out our joy from the mountaintop of our highest thoughts. Every moment is a choice for Love or not. And, every choice we make affects how we interpret and the Energy and Vibration of The Christ we share. We read in The Way of Transformation, “You are the one who holds dominion over all things. What does this idea of dominion mean? It means that you are the one who is the source of the power that can choose how you will see what is around you, how you will perceive it, and what you will believe most about it. You are the one with the power to penetrate the illusory veil of the world and see the heart, the essence, the truth, the Christ Child in everything—a blade of grass, the cry of a child, the barking of a dog, or the coming of the mail with the bills.”
Let us tell our Earth story from the mountain top of our mind and the immeasurable love of our heart, so that everyone we meet will know (if they choose to) what we know to be true: The Christ has been born on Earth as us.
Christmastime is all about the “Joy to the World” that gives meaning to the season. A Course in Miracles tells us, “The time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy.” Even though the time of Christ is anytime, and all the time, because The Christ is the only true Presence in any moment every time, and even though The Christ is the reason for every season, Christmas is an excellent season for us to become more aware of that Holy Presence.
The Christ is the Universal shimmering Light of the Holy Offspring of God, the Pure Positive Creative Energy that creates worlds as It Eternally expands in every dimension of Existence. It cannot be completely expressed by any form of Life. It isn’t a person or a thing, and yet It is every person and everything. Through the power of choice that is essence of Christ in us, every choice we make for Joy, for Love, and for Peace gives meaning to the time of Christ as us.
The Christ is the only true Presence within all Life everywhere (including right where we are). Even when we’re unaware It’s there, The Christ is aware of us. It is God’s One Creation, the One Son of God sent forth on an Eternal Creative Mission. The fullness of Christ is Present at all times—not just in bits and pieces here and there, expressing as a radiant sunrise or beautiful sunset; not only as a pristine forest or crystal clear lake; and not just through certain individuals, such as Jesus. The Truth of Christ is behind, beneath, behind, within, and beyond all that appears to be anyone or anything at any time.
In The Way of Transformation we read, “The Christ is the holy Child of God. Christ joins you with that part of your Self that abides always in perfect knowledge, perfect peace, perfect knowingness, and in perfect union with your Creator.” Jesus experienced the Reality of his perfect union with his Creator, the shimmering Source of all Life, and because he did, his Divine Self-expression became so powerful we’re still talking it over 2,000 years later! Jesus lived his Earth life in the High Holy Vibrational Awareness of his inseparable oneness with God and miracles occurred all around him. For Jesus there was nothing but The Christ to be and see.
Abraham-Hicks tells us, “When you sat before Jesus and you were dripping your illness, whatever it was, he did not see your illness. He was not focused upon the conditions that had manifested. He was unconditional in his awareness of the holy vibrational countenance of you.” We don’t need to become more spiritual than we are right now for miracles to occur all around us. We can decide not to focus on the conditions that have manifested, wherever and however they’ve manifested, and unconditionally focus on the vibrational-energetic Countenance of Christ within our self and all others. We don’t need be more holy to become aware of our perfect union with our Creator, and live with the same perfect knowledge that Jesus did, because Perfect Knowledge is always Present for us to know. We’re no less spiritual, even in our earthly form, than Jesus was, nor are we less The Christ in our non-physical Cosmic Soul than Jesus was.
We read in the Book of Romans, “Do not imitate the way of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may discern what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” And, The Way of Transformation adds, “And what will does the Father have, save that you be happy by returning to the peace that forever passes all understanding?” All we need to do be able to discern that good and acceptable and perfect will of God is to stop imitating the way of this world! We don’t need to become more holy or more spiritual, but we do need become more spiritually focused and become more aware of the Pure Spirit that lives in all life, including our own. Only then will the same Mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus.
Nothing has changed in over 2,000 years about The Christ that was, is and always will be All-That-Is. The same Christ fills the Universe today as It since the beginning because God’s creation is Unchangable. The world is changeable. The forms of creation are changeable. But nothing can change the Holy Substance of Creation’s Spiritual Reality. Creation can, and does, expand and extend, but It can’t change from Its original State of Grace. Mooji wrote, “We are never without grace. We can never be abandoned, it is always there. God can never abandon mankind.” Without God there would be no Christ. Without Christ there would be no mankind.
Only our awareness of The Christ in us and in All-That-Is can change. It can become less or more Present in our mind through our resistance to the Truth of the One we are or through our allowing that Truth to be who we are. How many of us feel uncomfortable with the idea that The Christ of God’s Creation lives in us? How many of us feel unworthy to even contemplate such an idea? Abraham-Hicks tells us, “It is not necessary that you fully understand the complexities of this eternally expanding environment in order to reap the benefits of that which it has become. But it is necessary that you find a way to go with the flow of the Well-Being that is stretched out before you. There is only one stream of Well-Being that flows. You can allow it or resist it, but it flows just the same.” With so much spiritual potential for us to express on Earth, with so much peace, love and joy to share with each other, are we ready to let this Christmas time be the time we find a way to go with the Flow of Well-Being, and let the same Christ that lived as Jesus on Earth live as us while we’re here?
We all know that if we’re looking for something in the dark with a flashlight, we don’t shine the light in our eyes. We’d be blinded by the light if we did. We know we have to shine the light from us toward what we want to see. In the same way, if we believe only a selected few carry The Light of Christ on Earth, and we’re looking for that Light outside of our us, we won’t be able to see a holy thing. If we try to find It in another without first experiencing Its holy Light in us, we’ll blinded to the Truth of who we are. If we want to see the Christ in the world, we have to shine the Light of Christ from within us into the world.
Any time we let Joy bubble up within us, in any moment we allow peace to calm us, and if we ever we experience Love without conditions, no matter how brief the experience might be, we are discerning that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We are experiencing the Reality of our perfect union with the Only Creator there Is. Let us let this season be the reason we allow The Light of Christ to light up our world. In the Book of Romans we read, “For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.”
The Hindu Guru, Ramana Maharshi said, “The true nature of man is happiness. Happiness is innate with one’s true Self. Your pursuit of happiness is an unconscious pursuit of your true Self.” Christmas time has been called “the hap-happiest time of the year!” Joy is the True Nature of All-That-Is. Joy causes the night stars to twinkle and our eyes to twinkle as well. Joy allows us to experience the One Pure Light that shines in the Unified Kingdom of Heaven within us, even while we live in contrast and diversity on Earth.
We are One with a Universe of Joy that joyfully responds to us, and through the Law of Attraction, matches us with things like us. When we’re happy, It matches us with things we like, and we become happier still. But if we’re in the habit of saying “bah humbug,” our life will seem to be more like the Grinch. His mood and attitude caused him to be a mismatch to the happy things he wanted.
We don’t change the Universe with our lack of Joy, we change our experience of Joy in the Universe. Swami Beyondanonda said, “The Universe has us surrounded. Might as well surrender.” This is a great time of year to surrender to Joy. Joy is the key to attracting thoughts we enjoy thinking no matter what we’re doing. It’s the key to attracting people we enjoy being with, and to our experiencing enjoyable events, activities and encounters in our life. If we continue “both day and night” to let Joy be alive in us, we’ll discover all the ways we can be Joyful this season.
Being Jolly is easier if we remember, even while we’re buying and wrapping and mailing gifts, that this season is a celebration, by many, of the birth of Christ on Earth. We read in A Course in Miracles, “Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy.” Even though through the years the symbols of Christmas Joy have come to include decorations that are seemingly unrelated to the Birth of Jesus, like jolly old St Nicholas and Frosty the Snowman who (as we know) was a jolly happy soul, they still reflect the Joy that gives meaning to Christmas. Still, for many Christian’s around the world “Jesus is the reason for the season” and a creche expresses the season best.
But whether we prefer to decorate with Santa and his reindeer or baby Jesus in a manger, or whether we prefer not to decorate at all, Christmas time is the perfect time for us to become more deeply aware that the birth and life of Jesus that offered a promise to humankind so long ago, is still offered today: The Light of Christ can fully enter world through anyone willing to live as Christ on Earth.
Jesus so transformed his Earth life that he became the full expression of the Love of God of Earth. To Christ Jesus there was no difference between God the Father and God the Son. He said on more than one occasion “I and the Father are One.” He surrendered so completely to Love that he loved without judgement and was able to see beyond human behaviors to the Christ within all. We read in A Course in Miracles, “The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God.”
Ever since that time so long ago, Jesus has been telling us through channeled Sacred Texts and our own Inner Voice and Holy Intuition, that we can live our life on Earth as he did—no longer a separate human, but identifying our Self as one with God. Through A Course in Miracles he tells us, “The Name of God’s Son is One, and you are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this Oneness.” We share the same Christ that lived in Jesus, the same Christ that is ready to be born in us! We could say that because we share the Oneness of Love with Jesus, we too are all the reason for the season! If we are willing to answer the call of Love, the call of happiness innate with our True Self, and let our Christ Light shine unresisted through us, It will shine so brightly that the Christ in us will see only the Christ in everyone else. Our Earth Life will become such a work of Love that, like the Earth life of Jesus, it will be filled with miracles
The titles of many of the Christmas songs and carols can be arranged in such way as to tell the story of what can occur in us, and through us, as we allow Christ to be reborn in our awareness so deeply, and in such a way, that there is no difference to us between the Christ on Earth that was born as Jesus over 2,000 years ago and the Christ that has been born as us. We read in The Way of Transformation, “You are in the holiest of temples, your Self. You abide in the perfect moment for your transformation. Nothing limits you at all or at any time. The power of the freedom of choice is the essence of Christ.” We are free to choose to be happy because the freedom of choice is the essence of Christ in us
As we know, the lyrics of Deck the Halls go, “Deck the Halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la, ’Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la, Don we now our gay apparel, Fa la la la la, la la la la, troll the ancient yuletide carol, Fa la la la la, la la la la.” Holly is highly sacred in Celtic mythology and symbolizes peace and goodwill. Rather than letting the hustle and bustle of holiday planning, and the crowded streets, stores and post office. frazzle our thoughts and mood, we can choose to start this season right, by decking the halls of our mind with thoughts of Joy, Peace and Love. We could say that when our mind is decked with boughs of holly, it is full of peace and goodwill toward others.
In the Shanti Christo Study Group Papers we read, “When you abide in the Light of Christ, you cannot help but know that Christ is longing to be birthed in the one who stands before you.” Whether that one is standing ahead of us in line because he took cuts, or is complaining loudly about something, if we will abide in the Light of Christ, we’ll remember that Christ is longing to be birthed in that one, and offer peace and goodwill no matter what.
“Don we now our gay apparel” can mean just about anything you’d like it to mean, but what does it mean to troll the ancient yuletide carol? Even in the age of internet trolls, we know it doesn’t mean to harass a bunch of Christmas carols. Back in the 16th Century, to “troll” meant to sing merrily and with vigor! This is our moment to let the Christ in us express as fully as we can, to no longer repress, restrict or deny the happiness that is innate with our true Self. Then our hearts will sing merrily with great vigor as we join the ancient yuletide carol that celebrates the Birth of Christ in everyone.
Rumi wrote, “If you knew yourself for even one moment, if you could just glimpse your most beautiful face, maybe you wouldn’t slumber so deeply in that house of clay. Why not move into your house of Joy and shine into every crevice!”
Gratitude, like Love, is an experience that must be felt rather than thought about. Our mind can tell us what Love is “like,” but it can’t give us the experience of Love. Only our heart can do that. In the same way, our thoughts can reflect upon those things we are grateful for, and even inspire feelings of appreciation, but thoughts can’t convey the depth our heart can feel in the moments we are grateful.
Gratitude and Love are co-mingling Energies that when we feel them in any moment, that Energy extends to those around us even without a word. Abraham-Hicks tells us, “Ask and it is given.” When we trust that’s true, the ordinary in our life becomes extraordinary as we realize that there are so many ways the given can show up in our life. When our cup of life is overflowing with appreciation, there always seems to be someone in our life who’s in the right place, at the right time, being the answer we’ve asked for.
But sometimes we fool our self into believing that gratitude is a thought in our head rather than an experience of the heart. Just as we can say “love you” and not actually feel the depth of Love in that moment, so we can say “thank you” without experiencing the holy vibration of Gratitude. We may think of Gratitude as “counting our blessings” because we know there are things in our life we should be grateful for. If we have a warm place to be during cold days and colder night, if we’re healthy and financially secure, and if we have people in our life who are good to us and for us, we know in our head that these are blessings Yet, we can have all of these good things in our life without actually experiencing the Gratitude that lives in our soul. Rumi wrote, “Thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
Thankfulness changes our perception of the moments of our life because the vibration of appreciation is in the same place where Love lives in us. We could say counting our blessings is “foreplay” to the experience of the Bliss of Gratitude. Counting our blessing can raise our vibration to that high Holy Place of true appreciation and, if it does, we’re in that place where the true bliss of being alive comes alive in us. We feel grateful just to be alive, no matter where we are. We feel grateful to be sharing this Earth life with so many beautiful others, no matter where they are. We feel grateful for what is, and for what is yet to come.
Every good thing we experience in our Earth life is a manifestation of the deeper connections we have with each other. We’re in this Love together, one with each other as we live in this world, and one with each other beyond this world even while we’re in it. Nothing seems to prove that more than the holy choreography of shared experience. Abraham-Hicks calls our vibrational partners, “cooperative components.” Cooperative components move into our life on currents of Love that originate far beyond the physical. In the Book of Isaiah we read, “And it shall come to pass that before they call I will answer them; and before they speak I will hear them.” Cooperative components answer the call of their heart as they become the answer to our silent or verbal asking, whether they appear for as a brief encounter or stay for a lifetime.
To feel Gratitude within us is to experience the Divinity in us. As we feel the reality of our true Nature, our awareness of who we truly are, and what we truly are together, changes our experience of our self in the world There is a Divine Presence here and now within each of us that connects us with each other; a living Presence behind our Earth Life that connects us with all Life. It is who we are in reality beyond the personality and preferences we often think of as our self. Gratitude opens us to the experience of the Eternal Beloved that is Present within and beneath all the temporary forms of this world. It’s good for us to feel good about the way things are going in our Earth life, but let’s face it, we are all “going, going,” and will be gone from this physical life experience at some point. We’re here in this human environment for so much more than getting comfortable by getting things.
There’s an old story about a Chinese Master Teacher that goes like this: Hui Hai once went to visit the great Master Ma Tzu. The Master asked him, “Why do you come here?” Hui Hai replied, “I come seeking enlightenment.” The Master said, “Why should you leave your home to wander about and neglect your own precious treasure? There is nothing I can give you. Why do you seek enlightenment from me?” Hui Hai pressed him for the Truth, “But what is my treasure?” The Master answered, “It is the one who has just asked the question; the one that contains everything and lacks nothing. There is no need to seek it outside yourself. Seeking presupposes that your treasure is far away. Seeking takes it for granted that it’s not here and now, that it is not in you, that it is not you. The seeker has started on a wrong journey. The seeker is never going to find God because God is not the sought, but the seeker himself.”
Mooji wrote, “My Love, stay here. Going in search of the Self as a goal is illusion. You are already One Self. You will purchase the map, only to find you are already Here.” There is nowhere we need to go, no time we need to wait, and nothing we need to do to be our True Self, here and now, except to be It here and now. Gratitude raises our vibrational awareness so that we’re able to perceive our treasure: The Kingdom of Heaven manifesting as our Earth Life. Everything good thing we want to manifest in our physical life, because we believe it will make us happy when it does, is already within us as an energetic-vibrational Presence. Rumi wrote, “You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck!”
As we allow Gratitude to elevate our non-physical energy to that place where we experience our spiritual reality, we realize we’ve never left Home. When we are in that place, our mind doesn’t resist the good that is there for us. Then the good things we want to experience in our Earth Life naturally appear to us in physical form because we’re up where we can see them. Abraham-Hicks tells us, “You’re not manifesting; you’re creating the environment that allows the manifestation. You create the vibrational atmosphere which equals your vibrational point of attraction, and then the Law of Attraction matches you with things like you.”
All that we want, all that we desire, all that we long for is already ours because we are a Divine Being immersed, here and now, in the Unlimited Creative Power of the Pure Positive Energy of a Universe that wants the same thing for us that we want for self: a life that feels good to live. We’re created to enjoy living, without struggle, effort, or sacrifice. But is struggle, effort, or sacrifice causes us to ask within us what this Life is for, if it causes us to ask for more than this world could ever provide for us, i.e., the knowledge of who we truly are, then whatever experiences we’ve had that up until now we’ve been ungrateful for, it’s time for us to be grateful for it all, every last drop of our Earth experiences so far. Rumi wrote, “Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”
If we let Thanksgiving Day call us to true feelings of gratitude for our life and what we have now; if we take a moment at the beginning of the Day to feel the happiness within our grateful heart; and if we take time throughout the Day to quiet our mind and feel a sense of peace and well-being beneath the festivities, we’ll find a deeper meaning for the word “Thanksgiving,” and become aware that there is far more to us and those around us than we all appear to be. Emerson wrote, “What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Sometimes the frantic energy around a Thanksgiving gathering can make us feel a bit crazy—getting the decorations up, getting the food ready on time, and showing up on time. It’s easy to forget what the Day is about. But crazy isn’t a new energy in this world. In fact, if we watch or read about what appears to be happening in our country and the world today, it would seem that this world passed crazy long ago and is venturing beyond the border of insanity. We read in A Course in Miracles, “Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts, sights and sounds of this insane world.” There are seldom any new reports of peace and well-being, no breaking news about how well things went that day. It’s easy to forget what this Life is about. That’s why it’s up to you and me to let our life be the good news we want to hear and see, not just Thanksgiving Day but every day.
It’s up to us to choose to be the presence of peace and well-being wherever we are, whatever we’re doing. No matter what is going on around us, our unwavering vibration of peace can change the energy, not only in a room, but in the world. When we’re aware that there is more to all of us, and for all us, and we feel the consistent certainty of that Truth, the more abundant good we will experience in our life, and the see more abundance of good we’ll see it appearing in the world around us. If we let an official day of giving thanks cause us to sink into the peace that awaits our grateful heart, we’ll stay sane far beyond Thanksgiving Day. A grateful heart is a happy heart. When we live each day as if it were Thanksgiving Day, our feelings of gratitude draw thoughts of appreciation to our mind. Vibrations of happiness are all around us just waiting to become our thought!
The Bible is filled with metaphors and poetry, and the Book of Psalms offers them beautifully. The 23rd Psalm begins “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” When we talk on Sundays about the “wanted and unwanted” in our life, it’s not to imply that we’re ever lacking anything. It’s to imply that we’re not allowing what is already spiritually ours to manifest in our physical experience. Every good thing we could ever ask for is already within us—answered before we ask, given before we need, fulfilled before we want. We read in A Course in Miracles, “What is the Will of God? He wills His Son have everything, and this He guaranteed when He created him as everything. It is impossible that anything be lost, if what you have is what you are.”
As we like to say, “We are not a drop in the ocean, we are the ocean in a drop.” And in the same way, we are not a self in a Universe separate from us, we are the whole Universe as our Self within it. Just as the ocean has no separate drops, no drops that are not made of what the entire ocean is made of, so it is that whatever God is we must be also because God is all there is—the whole Universe and all the multi-verses, and everything that exists within them. we read in the Lamsa Bible, “Everything came to be by his hand; and without him not even one thing came to be of what was created.” All that exists was made by God, If we “is,” and we are, we are Divinely made. If that doesn’t seem true to us, about us or anyone else, it’s because we’re focusing on changeable appearances, rather than the Unchanging Power behind them. We’re focusing on the insanity of the world, rather than the Eternal Peace, Love and Joy that has caused All-That-Is to be.
In the Aramaic Bible in Plain English, one of the stanza’s of the 23rd Psalm reads, “You have prepared tables in front of me opposite my enemies; you have anointed my head with oil and my cup overflows as if it were alive.” As infinite expressions of an Infinite Source, we’re not offered just one table, but multiple tables, like a Universal all-you-can-eat buffet. Everything we could ever desire to express or experience is already prepared for us. It’s all on the tables, an unlimited buffet from which we get to choose anything we want. And, that’s why we came into this world—not to get stuff because everything is already ours. We came to become aware of our Power as a Being of God to create by consciously choosing from all the contrast in the world a life we enjoy living.
We live in a world of duality for a reason. Without it there would be no individual awareness or experience of our self as a Master creator. If we never had an opportunity to choose between this or that, we wouldn’t know we could choose. We live in a world of countless pairs of opposites, not opposing powers, but as two ends of the same stick. Both ends are always on the table because it’s just one stick offering us the opportunity to choose which end of the stick we want to focus on. Our chosen focus is important because it is our focus that causes our experience of Life. It should be a simple choice if we want to live a life of Joy.
We read in A Course in Miracles, “This is the miracle by which creation became your function, sharing it with God.” But rather than focusing on what we want, somewhere along the line (it doesn’t matter where), we started to believe we had no choice. We began to eat the same thing over and over again even if we didn’t like it or we were bored with it. Or be started eating everything, even if it made us sick. We started fighting with each other over scraps as if there wasn’t enough to go around on the tables our Source had set before us. And, we started complaining about things that were on the tables we didn’t like even though others seemed to like them.
When we focus on lack in the world, on conflict in the world, and on what others are choosing in the world, we help to perpetuate it because what we focus on becomes our experience of Life. We pinch our self off from experiencing all the goodies on all the tables before us for which we are free to choose. In the stage play, Auntie Mame, the lead character says, “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” When we don’t look in the direction of our good, we can’t see it so we believe it isn’t there. We keep asking for it, but not looking for it within where it’s already prepared.
But as eternal creators of our individual experiences of Life, we get to choose differently anytime we decide to. If we’re still hungry for Joy we can feed it gratitude that will fill us up. If we’re a little “queasy” because what we’ve chosen so far hasn’t sat well with us, we can choose again. And, even if we don’t immediately see our good in physical form before us, if we trust it’s there just same and feel happy about that, our gratitude will open our eyes to the abundant good that from the beginning was prepared for us.
