UnityofCorvallisBlog

Life in a World of Infinite Possibilities

2009-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

I am fascinated to live in a world of infinite possibilities and at the same time observe how so many people feel stuck with no options. I realize there is at any given moment the immediate possibility of choosing to feel trapped … but I get ahead of myself.

Ordinarily we humans do not see ourselves living in a field of pure potential. Instead, we automatically select our range of choices down to a manageable number of “viable options”. This seems to work reasonably well most of the time, but insulates us from the underlying principle: we live in a world of infinite possibilities. Just consider the infinite number of choices before you right now. You can continue reading, stop reading, decide to read later, hit reply and correspond with me, or forward this to 1) a good friend, 2) to your parents, 3) to someone with whom you are in a running feud. In addition you can call someone to share the ideas illuminated here, invite them to subscribe to our blog to receive our Prosperity Thoughts every month, and you can just as easily choose to unsubscribe from our list server. So many unlimited choices are before you at this moment but only if you are open to them!

We often experience limited choices because we see only one option in our mind, thus collapsing the field of infinite possibilities down to a fixed determinate. Although there is a time and place for narrowing our committed intention, too often it is not an empowered decision—rather it is a mis-perception that there are no other choices. This is a common result of rigid thinking.

Believing there is only a single choice usually stems from one of two impoverished mind sets. One is victim mentality characterized by an unwillingness to take responsibility for co creating a world that works for all. Some might say that people living in this consciousness will not even take responsibility for co creating anything. This person’s operational perspective is often that they are wrong and they are bad.

The other mind set that fixates on a single option is the result of arrogant and self centered immaturity which thinks “I alone know precisely what is best for all concerned.” They are rarely able to co create successfully. A person living in this consciousness tends to hold to the idea that they are right and good and that others are bad and mistaken

Even though, on the outside, the victim stance looks weak compared to the arrogant stance which looks powerful, in consciousness both are locked into scarcity thinking. Either aspect of this type of mental framework leads to power struggles and conflict. Neither approach, victim or arrogant, is easily able to co create in the field of infinite possibilities. Both are stuck in rigid thinking.

Sometimes rather than operate from pure rigid thinking, we can see only two choices. Our mental process looks like this… “Either “a” will happen or “b”: will happen.” This type of thinking tends to be catastrophic and extreme. In this mind set, we are polarized rather than integrated. This is often called “all or nothing thinking” or “black/ white thinking” due to the either/or framework inherent in this restricted world view.

Whenever we find ourselves locked into rigid thinking or only two options, we are cut off from the field of infinite possibilities. To move beyond these two restricting world views, we need to learn to live with an open heart. An exercise which immediately frees us from limiting beliefs is finding at least three or more possible options or outcomes in any difficulty we are facing. Once we see three possibilities, an infinite number of nuances and variations become available to us. Our consciousness will naturally expand and extend to lead us to the field of infinite possibilities when we are willing to be open minded and vulnerable. It is our natural state to live in a world of infinite possibilities.

You might wonder about the utility of thinking about impossible options. The only impossible options in a world with infinite possibilities are the ones you close your mind and heart to. Lewis Carroll wrote about believing in the impossible in his metaphysical classic, Alice in Wonderland.

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Let us affirm together: I am empowered to create my life from a field of infinite possibilities and I intentionally open to infinite choices leading me to all my good.

Working within the grain

2009-10-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Every year there are a few periods of time that tend to cut against my personal grain. My generic style is one of being purposeful and I thrive on results generated by authentic action. I like being productive, efficient and targeted. “Management by objective” and “mission-driven operations” are concepts that typically resonate with me and thus I am most comfortable when I am in action mode. In the face of this momentum, there are always a few weeks where it seems to me that I have to wait for the world to catch up with me. However much I may want to rationalize it in the moment as “lag time”, my deeper understanding is profoundly different.

The weeks in the middle of September present a prime example. For eons, Northern Europeans faced a time after the harvest of the grains and grasses was complete and before the winter crops (pumpkins and other gourds) had come in. This window of time of forced inactivity was very different from the time in the dead of winter because there was still ample daylight and good weather. The people’s energy was still up and they wanted to work, but there was little constructive work that could be accomplished.

In contrast, the dead of winter was cold, dark and often blanketed in deep snow and therefore, the energy and focus of humans turned naturally inward. It seems to me that the contrast between the energetic archetypes of these two periods still holds true to this day.

In my human-centered worldview (we’ll get to a more spiritually-centered view in a moment), I have two very distinct choices in how to respond to these nearly universal “lull periods": One of my options is to keep busy with “make work” and the other is to impatiently wait out the inactivity. You may have your own set of tactics for dealing with this phenomenon, and while they may differ in details, I suspect that the underlying issues are the same.

I believe that being busy is not the same as being productive. My core value about being productive means for me that I want to be effective with the time and energy I invest. Hence, making work simply to keep busy does not align with my values and so in the past I have leaned to the second tactic-impatience.

During a brief downtime in the past I would stew, and squirm and, in an irritated way, wrestle with waiting. It was unbearable. For example, when I was a senior in college, I had an entry-level career job in sales lined up when I graduated. I found out the company that had hired me had two training groups over the summer-an early group and a later group. (Depending on when each employee’s graduation was scheduled new hires were assigned to one of the two groups.) I made arrangements to finish up my college classes early, take my exams early, turn in papers early -- all so that I could start work sooner and be in the first pod of trainees.

At the end of the summer, it turned out that the management was going to wait to assign any of us to territories until the second pod completed their training. I almost quit the job rather than wait through a couple of weeks of enforced downtime before being assigned my sales territory.

Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, there is a more spiritually sound third available choice. In this time of “in between”, I can choose to more fully experience patience and surrender, not just as abstract intellectual concepts, but as practice. Unsurprisingly, this is more difficult for me than either of the first two options.

Here are a few things I have learned in adopting this practice: The Tao distinguishes between yin (receptive) and yang (proactive) energy, each necessary to the other. Thus, rather than take that restless energy swirling inside me and find some “busy work” or wait impatiently for some meaningful life errands to do, I embrace my restlessness and sense what it feels like to be patient. I would like to be calm, serene and still during these times that seem to call for a yin response, but I am often pulled toward feeling anxious and out of sorts. I know intellectually that it would be good for me to be more balanced, and in order to get to a more balanced energy, I need to be at peace with idle periods. The only way to constructively accomplish this, is to see the value in not being busy (which is not so hard for me to do) and see the value in not being productive, (which is very hard for me to do/be) and learn to embrace the stillness.

There is a part of me that overvalues “doing” and undervalues “being”. The way to integrate and harmonize these two is to “be” still, and to “be” at peace with the experience of stillness. In other words, I need to get comfortable with being “unproductive” in the way that I have understood productivity up until now. This requires self acceptance, and the willingness to trust the larger rhythms at work in my life. I can learn to be accomplished at waiting, learn to let go of the egoic sense of urgency that tells me that every moment must be productive. I can have first-hand experience with healing impatience which, at a minimum, will help me be compassionate with other driven persons with whom I interact.

Moreover, on a more subtle level, taking time to “be” is actually far more productive in the long run than constantly doing, doing, doing. For me, learning the art of patience is sometimes excruciating, however the anxiety I now feel, in this period between harvests (between projects), is only a small vestige of the irritability I used to feel during periods of enforced downtime. Sometimes intermediate steps are a sign of good progress on the spiritual path. In those times when I cannot fully embrace the stillness, I have found that there are some constructive things that I can do that are purposeful, centering and aligned with both my values and my desire to be peaceful in lull periods. Writing this is both productive and somewhat meditative. Going for a walk is a good way for me to disperse some of the pent-up energy I feel during these periods of restlessness without getting caught up in working. Investing in some reading can be useful when I face a lot of open hours. These are not “make work” projects and so there is some blessing in them.

To some extent, these steps may look like they only address the symptoms and not the root of the issue. And yet, progress is progress and if the issue is driven behavior, then moderation is a sign of healing. Now that I am aware of the benefit of aligning my inner rhythm with outer events, I can notice my reactions in these slow times. I can begin living life on life’s terms rather than on my terms. I can trust that it is good for me to have periods of low activity so that I can practice patience. My heart tells me that I can be calm and serene as life unfolds as part of a larger rhythm that includes all around me. This is a much more joyous way to live.

Light Reflecting off a Top Hat- Sept. 2009 Prosperity Thoughts

2009-08-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

One of the core Spiritual Truths that we teach is that our dreams, deeply held and with lots of positive emotion attached will activate the Organizing Intelligence of the Universe to manifest our yearnings. We also teach that when we follow our life purpose, it inevitably leads to success. Here is a true story that provides a beautiful junction of these two principles.

A good friend of mine wrote the other day that he especially liked watching iconic black and white movies, especially those from the '30's and '40's. More importantly to this tale, for the past three or four decades, every time he saw a character wearing the classic top hat in those films, he wanted one. Apparently he loved the way light would reflect off of the top hats and appear to spin off the spiral at the top of the hat, much in the same way that many others love the way a diamond, prism, or a stained glass window can do magical things to light.

It turns out that only the very highest quality top hats make the light dance, and the reason was that they were made of beaver pelts rather than cheaper materials. His dream of owning a brand new top hat of the finest quality seemed absurd in the 21st century. So far as he knew, such top hats had not been made since the 40's or 50's. He figured that any that could be found would probably be antiques--old, worn, and if in decent condition, prohibitively expensive. Moreover, even if he could find one from that era, what would be the odds that it would be his exact hat size?

Nonetheless, over the years he often commented when watching the old movies that he'd love to own one someday--and why. The Universe listened, and so did his family.

A few months ago, his three children captured the Divine Idea of making his dream come true. (I will skip over this man's karma, but it will suffice to say that he has made many people's dreams come true over his lifetime, especially the dreams of his children. The recent economic downturn crushed his business and yet he remains one of the most generous and kind people I know.)

On his recent birthday, his 52nd, he opened a present from his three children. In his hands he held the most improbable and craziest gift he had ever received: a very handsome--, downright beautiful!--top hat that reflects the light in exactly the way he'd wanted for decades!

His son (someone who once whipped me badly on computer games when he was younger) found an old European immigrant in Cincinnati, Gus, who still makes top hats by hand. The three kids all chipped in to buy one from Gus. Gus is the proprietor of a small hat shop in Cincinnati, Ohio, that has been in business making hats for 100 years. Gus started working there as a teenager for his uncle when he immigrated from a small village in Greece. When Gus started he knew nothing about hats, but he worked hard and learned the business first hand. After working his way up as an employee from stockroom sweeper to hat maker, he eventually purchased the shop.

Now, he has worked in the same little shop for 56 years. Men's hats have fallen seriously out of style over the years, and there is almost no one in America making hats anymore. But Gus has thrived during these downturns because he is “old school”. He makes perhaps the finest hats in America. He is a craftsman in an authentic way; even in this internet age he has no marketing aside from word of mouth- no web site, no e-mail, not even a fax machine…and yet, his word of mouth is fantastic.

Most of his customers have to come into the shop in person for a fitting. The customer's firsthand experience of Gus' passion for his work and his personal commitment to excellence is so remarkable that customers can't wait to tell their friends and write letters of gratitude. While sitting in the shop being waited on in person, Gus' customers will read letters of appreciation and thanks that are framed and posted all over the wall of the shop.

But as you could guess, given the level of love that Gus puts into each hat sold, they are not just ordinary letters. Gus has created and sold hats to some of the most famous people in the world and has done so for generations. Singer Luciano Pavarotti, comedian Bill Cosby, the late comic Red Skelton and entertainer Tony Bennett. He has fitted at least three US Presidents in that shop. Why do they come to him in “flyover country” like Cincinnati? Deion Sanders, famous football and baseball player and NFL analyst said of Gus that "the service you get is undeniably the best in the business."

Since my friend's top hat was a surprise gift, his kids could not get it fitted properly before hand, so as could be expected the fit isn't quite right. It is a bit loose front-to-back, and a little too tight on the sides, so it sits a little high and rocks back and forth slightly on his head. Not to worry, because Gus is a craftsman who makes hats as his life's work. He has a calling and his passion for making outstanding hats is his dream. Impeccable customer service is just a part of his calling and so Gus had already promised my friend's children that he would re-fit the hat so that it would fit perfectly.

When my friend called to arrange to have his top hat refitted he got the true treasure within the birthday gift. He learned that Gus told his children that the top hat they wanted would be very expensive and strongly suggested something less costly. My friend then learned that his kids talked about the alternative, but in the end his kids told Gus that they wanted this exact top hat for their dad. They decided that it didn't matter how much they'd have to work to pay for it because it would take them a lifetime to repay their father for all the blessings he had given them. And so, my friend manifested the precise top hat of his dreams.

I would guess that the desire that my friend has for a top hat is easily surpassed by the deep passion that he and his wife have held for years to raise a loving family. In this case, the Organizing Intelligence in the Universe co-created a situation where both desires could be true on the same birthday. Happy birthday, my friend.

Prosperity in the Doldrums

2009-08-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I first found out that "doldrums" was a real word a few years ago when I was at Unity Village taking classes. I grew up on the West Coast and we had the Santa Anna Winds that came up in the afternoons. We had the El Ninjo/La Ninja ocean currents that pulled cold water down from the Arctic or brought warm water up from Baja. We had Marine Inversion Layers. We also had micro climates galore, but we did not have a weather pattern called the doldrums.

At Unity Village I learned that in certain regions in the South and Midwest there were times in the summer when the air became stiflingly hot, humid and still so that it is almost deprived of sufficient oxygen to comfortably breathe. One day I was walking to class and it was hot and muggy and I was having trouble breathing as I walked and someone explained that it was the doldrums. Prior to that moment, I thought the doldrums was a nautical term that described the absence of trade winds such that sailing ships would be stranded for days or weeks on the high sea waiting for the wind to pick up. I also knew that in colloquial usage, "The summer doldrums" or "having in the doldrums" referred to that period toward the very end of summer vacation when all the fun had leached out of summer and we were waiting for school to resume in the fall.

As I write at the very end of August, it seems appropriate to see how the doldrums fit in with the theme of prosperity. I have generally understood the doldrums to involve a state of listlessness, inactivity and stagnation. Emotionally it feels despondent and energetically it feels like being in a slump. On the surface, this seems the exact opposite of prosperity consciousness which for most people feels vibrant, expansive and exciting. So, how does a concept like the doldrums, exist in an abundant and prosperous universe.

In nature, there are times of great expansion (typically spring) and times of dormancy ( typically winter). In understanding our experience of our prosperity it is important to incorporate these concepts as energetic fields in our own being. Prosperity consciousness is not some frantic, manic or hyper mind set. It does include time for direct action, it also includes times of waiting and times of indirect action. They key is to harmonize our actions with our energy flow so that we create synergy. I recall one sage teacher suggesting to me that the optimum way to live life was to reel in what was heading towards us and reel out that was heading away from us.

These ebbs and flows of energy and enthusiasm are all around us. Popular music goes through crazes where one type of song is all the rage and then a few years later the same type of music (or performer) is passe'. Certain books are hugely topical for a very short period and then practicably unsellable afterwards. Clothing styles are also subject to fads where a specific look is "in" one season and "out" the next year. Nothing can be done to change this, and so within the context of prosperity consciousness we are best served by going with the current that surrounds us anyway.

Here is a real life example of how I efficiently created synergy during a slack time. When I was in private practice as a bankruptcy attorney, there were typically two very slow periods, one in August when all the Judges, clients and other lawyers seemed to all be on vacation and the other around the Christmas holidays when Judges were on holiday and clients were shopping and spending. There was no realistic way to get any productive work done during this period. Instead, I would use these two slack periods to catch up on all my office filing and wrap up all the other non urgent paperwork that I tended to shunt aside during peak periods. Thus, I often looked forward to these two slack periods so that I could get my office caught up.

If we do not align ourselves with the energetic flow then we often create conflict or manifest exhaustion from going against our natural rhythm. Years ago, I used to get together with a group of River Guides and we would run cooperative trips. Most of the other guides lived near the river, while I lived a good 3 1/2 hours away from the river. On every trip, I used to push to get on the river, push to get lunch set up and then over with so we could get back on the river and then push to get off the river at the take out and so forth. I was focused on my long dive home and not on harmonizing with the energy and needs of the other guides who wanted a much more relaxed experience. We did not have overt conflict over it, but on the way home I would be frustrated and by the time I arrived home I would be exhausted rather than relaxed from a wonderful day on the river.

When we find ourselves listless and de-energized we need to determine if this is just a natural phase of the doldrums or is this the onset of depression. One way to evaluate this is to see if there is authentic action for us to do that we are postponing. If we are procrastinating on genuinely productive work, then perhaps this is a symptom of some underlying emotional current that needs to be addressed. On the other hand, we may be in an organic slack period where there is nothing directly helpful for us to do except wait and relax. In these natural slack times there will always be something useful for us to do, but it will not be so directly tied to whatever project we are focused on. Maybe we take a day off and go hike in the mountains or walk along the ocean. Maybe it is time to put everything aside and just get caught up on our gardening or art projects. Perhaps it is the right moment to organize other areas of our life, like getting the garage straightened up or the car cleaned and tuned up. These are indirect ways of keeping up momentum without trying to force situations.

Kayacking and the Three Levels of Awareness

2009-08-28T13:40:00.001-07:00

The experience of abundance and prosperity in our lives occurs only in the present moment; however, the present moment is made up of many layers of awareness. If we want to enjoy prosperity then it helps to be conscious of how prosperity is manifested in our mind.

Spending several days kayaking on the river helped me see this more clearly and may provide a good backdrop for you as well. Running an actual stretch of rapid whitewater well is an exhilarating and satisfying experience of being one with nature and one with the moment. Each instant presents a moment of decision in which to adjust to the conditions on the river. There is a perfect balance between action and pausing, between flowing and powering through, between resting and exerting. There is an exquisite joy in manifesting the mind-body connection instantaneously, over and over again. It is near nirvana to make and remake my karma, millisecond by millisecond, as I adjust back into perfect balance and absolute center amidst the ebbs and flows of the river. At this level of awareness I am fully in the present moment and my heart fills with unlimited joy.

And yet, in all that present moment joy, I am always both fully in the present instant and aware of the line I am setting up my kayak for my run through the next set of rocks. In white water kayaking, particularly in a highly technical (complex and challenging) section of river, it is vital to choose a line that presents an opening to a great run. Choosing the wrong line, or misreading the water, or focusing too much on the present moment and ignoring the overall longer-range trends in the river impact the results, often in a dramatic way.

Thus, I suggest that running a stretch of white water rapids requires a combination of being present in the instant, being present in the near moment and planning for the future. All three are essential and simultaneous. Overlooking or ignoring any one of these aspects of kayaking will lead to a rocky experience. We need to be on the right river, going the right direction and in the right place and only by being fully aware of all of these dynamics in the same instant can we be fully present. The same is true in looking at our general prosperity consciousness. To be sure, there is no one “right” anything, just as there is no “wrong” anything. I use this phrase here to connote the optimum in the context of your goals, or the ideal in terms of your values or the optimum in relationship to your needs.

Here are three examples that illustrate this point: The first day that Debbie and I kayaked this summer, we did not get onto the river itself until after 4 pm. We did not know how long the trip on the river would take and were a little concerned about being on the river after dark. As our trip progressed, there was, in the back of our awareness, a little unease and a sense of urgency. We both felt a need to push a little on the flat stretches and be extra cautious not to get hung up in the shallow water and not to get flipped in the white water. We could be present in the instant as long as we kept in mind the physical fact that evening was approaching. Moving along at a good clip and preferring to stay as dry as possible due to the choice we’d made to set off when we did, was a part of our present moment experience.

On another trip many years ago, we left a car at the takeout some ten miles from the put-in. This would seem to make for an easy day of kayaking, but we did not take into account the distinction between river miles and road miles and the moderate pace of the river we were on. After an hour or two of winding along the river it was obvious we would never make it to the takeout site in time, (We pulled out near a house along the highway, used the cell phone that Debbie brought ( as part of her preparations) and called for help to come get us and drive us to our car). In this example, we were headed for an experience we did not want and thus headed in the wrong direction, (we needed to head to shore rather than keep paddling downstream).

On my very first whitewater kayaking trip, a friend took me on a river that was way too advanced for my skill level and I did not have sufficient cold weather gear. It was easily one of the most miserable days of my life because I tipped over within the first few feet of whitewater and swam in the icy cold water time and time again throughout the day. I was nearly numb from the cold. I was clearly on the wrong river, in terms of my skill level at the time, and the attire I was wearing given the temperature of the water. This is an example of being on the wrong river due to my lack of preparation and awareness.

The point of these three specific kayaking examples is that our present moment is always colored by the ongoing direction we are headed and the pre-planning (or lack thereof) we have made for our success. In each moment we want to be in the right (optimum) place, heading the right (ideal) direction and on the right (best) river.

Life is a journey that unfolds moment by moment in a sequence, just like a river is a flow of continuous particles of water traveling downstream. It is always true that our experience of prosperity is a choice, but at the same time we experience our own karma from the choices and actions we have already made. The decisions we make now, or the choices we avoid making now, all impact the flow in our life downstream.

If we put in on a river that is too difficult for us to navigate we are going to have a tough time when we reach the rapids. If we do not bring the proper safety gear we may have a very regrettable experience. In actual application, that means that sometimes I may choose a wide and relatively flat river to float so that I can enjoy the calm water and relax for a while as I drift down stream. If this is what I want to experience, then I must set this in motion by choosing a stretch of river that meets my need to float. If I choose a highly technical stretch of white water when I want to float, there is a mismatch between my intentions and my actions and I will be aware of them in the present moment.

It is, in both my experience and my opinion, a fallacy offered by some New Thought and Prosperity teachers that we can experience bliss moment by moment without being aware of the larger context of our life. We need to prepare for our optimum outcome be getting clear on our values, purpose, and the experience we want. If not, then we are in denial if we think ambiguous foresight will produce optimum results.

In any fully-present-moment experience, I am open to the awareness of what is momentarily in front of me so that I can navigate joyously that next section of my life smoothly. Ease and grace on the river are greatly amplified when I take a moment and set myself up for success for the next undertaking. Chaos and discomfort are sometimes the immediate result when I fail to make desirable adjustments, apparent in the moment, that increase the likelihood of success in the long run.

In terms of prosperity consciousness, the choices we make now set up the situations we will face in the near-term future and will impact our long-term future. If we study prosperity principles now, we set ourselves up for more prosperity in the near term and increase the chances of experiencing abundance in the long run. If we study something else, or decide to stay home and watch TV, then we need to be aware in that moment of the impact that choice makes on the next set of choices we will face.

When I was in college, as a Business Major, I once took a class in Italian Film because the time slot was perfect for my schedule, I needed a liberal arts elective and I thought the class would be interesting and easy. It seemed to be an ideal choice. However, I did not realize that it was a class only for Italian majors. Every word spoken in class, and in the films shown, was in Italian. My Italian goes no further than spaghetti and pizza. I stopped attending a few weeks after I realized the mistake and considered myself fortunate to receive a D+ grade.

I did not feel prosperous having taken the class as it dragged my grade point average down and it was a total waste of my tuition money. I did not experience joyous prosperity in that classroom experience because of the poor decisions I made leading up to that moment and no amount of mind treatment was going to change the fact that I did not prepare for an optimum outcome. Even though Italian Film was offered at the right time, it was the wrong class for me. I could have tried to be present to the joy in the moment and continued in the class, but it was not helping me in my long-term direction and pretending otherwise would not have resulted in acceptance of the moment. Instead my awareness of the moment would have been dulled by my denial of how remaining in the class impacted the rest of my choices.

One of our iconic and idealic images of someone being in the moment is the fly fisherman, casting his line into a beautiful pool of water on a remote scenic river. Trust me, he chose that river, and chose that spot, and chose the time of day and the fly that he was using and the waders he is wearing. A lot of practice went into that perfect cast of the fly. Not one aspect of his experience is random or accidental. The fly fisherman experiences bliss only to the extent that he is casting into the right spot with the right fly at the right time on the right river. So, in living a prosperous life, we are aware in each moment of the present moment, the near term moment and the long term moment. Our awareness includes being on the right river, heading the right direction and being in the right spot. This then is the full awareness that leads to true bliss.

Uncovering our authentic Self

2009-08-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

We offer a system of proven spiritual tools that if applied systematically will inevitably result in your freedom from economic insecurity as well as your living a joyous, meaningful and prosperous life.

However, there is one thing that will undermine all of these teachings and which is guaranteed to result in your life being miserable and impoverished. That one thing is trying to be someone you are not. Let me explain by way of an example.

Many years ago when I had just begun my spiritual path, (after perhaps 5-6 years of dedicated work), I thought of myself as a monk. I did not then actually know what a monk really was, but I liked the idea of this and began calling myself a monk. However, a man who did know me confronted me when he heard me refer to myself as a monk and said words to the effect that I would never be a monk. He was emphatic almost to the point of outrage.

I have since met Tibetan Monks, Buddhist Monks, Hindu Monks, Zen Monks and a number of other monks, and my friend was right. I will just never be a monk. You see at the time that I was calling myself a monk, I really was a fierce and ruthless trial attorney- I was a seasoned and battle hardened litigator. Yes, I was on a spiritual path and eventually I would become a skilled and successful mediator and then a minister, but I was never going to become a monk. I was a seeker, a mystic, a maverick and perhaps a heretic, but not a monk.

The point is that if I had continued to try to be a monk I would not have been true to myself. I would have either been a spiritual fraud or a miserable failure. There is nothing wrong with being a monk, but it was not me and it was not my path. It was not authentic to my true nature. My friend who saw me so clearly as never being a monk was acting with ruthless compassion when he spoke up and confronted me. I have always been grateful for his courage to speak up. His words saved me from learning the hard way that I must be true to myself if I want joyous prosperity. Me wanting to be a monk was never going to result in my inner peace and fulfillment but me being a mystic and seeker has lead me to a life filled with joy, mystery, growth and blessings.

It has been my observation that one of the common ways that people fall into the trap of trying to be someone they are not is when they are trying to live out their understanding of the dreams/expectations of someone else. In my case, I had a girlfriend during the time I posed as a monk, who saw herself as a yogi. In order for her to be a yogi, she apparently projected that she needed a partner that was a monk. To my recollection she never said this out loud, but I certainly picked it up and ran with it because of my desire to please her and to be her partner on the spiritual path.

When someone we love wants us to fill the role that they need filled, our desire to please them can superficially supersede our own soul yearning. We see this so often when a parent wants their offspring to be a doctor or lawyer. They send them off to law school or medical school but right before the bar exam (or right before their medical boards) the child realizes that they are completely in the wrong field and are only doing it to please their parents. This type of thing happens all too often, as in youth sports or in Hollywood with child actors. In both cases the parent wants to have their child live out the parent's unfulfilled dreams of being an athlete or of being rich and famous and pushes the child out of their natural life trajectory into one that fulfills the needs of the parents.

It is very hard for the child to see this because their very self image is often dependent on pleasing their parents. When I was a teenager, my father projected that he would soon need a manager for the carpet/flooring sales division in his business. When I graduated from college I became a carpet salesman. The first seven or eight years of my career were to get approval and recognition from my father. It has been hard work for me to discover my own authentic self. I have had to be very intentional about it and make many mis steps along the way. If you find that you have given up a part of yourself to fulfill someone else’s dream or needs, be fierce in breaking the bond and be gentle with yourself in allowing yourself to grieve the losses inherent in this part of your journey.

A variant of powerful parent child dynamic is the overly rebellious or defiant child. They too temporarily loose their own way by defining themselves in conflict with their parents and the society in which they were raised. They are not able to read their own soul’s yearnings because it is overshadowed with their need to individuate against their parents. In this case, their authentic self gets lost because they are so attached to not being like their parents. It is somewhat ironic to see so many of the Hippie era youth now living very conventional middle class lives. They have become the very thing that they were rebelling against.

Another common pitfall is to continually wish for a life that is not really our own. I know someone who is very self reliant and competent and a very hard worker. She is organized and productive and forceful and a mature woman. She keeps wanting to be seen as a princess. Moreover, she wants to be seen as an elegant princess. (In her belief structure princesses are meant to be rescued and cared for, meant to enjoy beauty and elegance, and most importantly be adored and sought after for their grace, beauty and innocence). But unfortunately, in my judgment (and by her own admission) she is not really princess material: she does not have the sense of entitlement that the princess archetype requires. There is nothing wrong with being a princess if that is your true nature, but trying to be treated like a princess when it is not your true nature is never going to result in the experience of lasting joy or success.

Instead of holding on to an image of our selves that is not authentic, the path to a sense of welling being, inner peace and contentment will have to come from discovering an authentic self and then growing accordingly. To manifest an authentic self in real time will be work, but it is work that will energize and empower each step along the way.

There are rare times when someone else can see the gold within in us the way that Michelangelo could see the statue within a block of granite. All he needed to do was chip away the granite that was not the statue and he would have a masterpiece. They key here, of course, is that Michelangelo had the gift of vision. His eye could see in stark relief that which appeared to be hidden to the ordinary eye.

Most people have not manifested this level of insight, nor do they have the disinterested objectivity to be flawless in their seeing. The path to uncovering an authentic self requires rigorous honesty and self awareness. So far as I know, there are no short cuts. As best I can tell, it is the most interesting and compelling spiritual work that we can do. It is also the most rewarding and the most painfully humbling.

We teach that when you are being your authentic self, you cannot fail- your success if guaranteed. You will make mistakes along the way of course and learn from them with ease and grace- at least that is what I keep telling myself each time I make another mistake.

Reflections on kayaking, life, and prosperity

2009-08-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

Six recent splendid days of whitewater kayaking have brought to mind some analogous thoughts about life and prosperity.

Rarely have I seen anyone kayak alone. There are a number of possible reasons; it is probably too dangerous to kayak without any back up on the river, logistically two cars are needed to run the shuttle from the put-in and take-out points and people tend to be social and enjoy shared experiences.

Likewise, I have rarely seen anyone prosper alone. Teamwork and companionship are powerful levers that provide back up, logistical assistance and emotional/social support. They may not be needed in economic flat water but they are essential in turbulent times.

A good kayak run requires harmonizing both the whitewater experience and the accompanying flat water. Both are inevitably present, at least they are at the skill level on the rivers that I kayak. For many years I thrived in the whitewater and was bored and restless in the flat water. In truth, I was insufferable in the flat water. My attitude ruined the trip for both myself and anyone accompanying me. I have learned that both sections of river require my attentive presence in order for the trip to be successful. While in the rapids I focus on the current and running the river and when in the flat water I focus on the natural beauty and majesty of the river.

In the same way, a good run in life requires us to harmonize between periods of high turbulence and times of calm. Both are inevitably going to be present in our lifetime. Being fully aware and present in each moment is crucial to an abiding sense of joy and prosperity. True prosperity transcends mere results and derives from enjoying life's journey itself. Finding the blessing in each moment is key.

Living life on life's terms means not trying to avoid any turbulence that may come our way. Avoidance is a symptom of a fear-based existence. Turbulence is a time of change that can be a blessing when embraced. Nothing is better at helping us get clear on our values and their priority. A shift in our status quo can motivate us to develop skills far outside our comfort zone and become open to new ideas we may have never explored. It is in times of turbulence that many of us find or become closer to a higher power because we are called to, and experience a new level of faith.

Stirring up trouble during periods of calm does not often lead to growth- it leads to conflict and drama. Organic chaos is integral to the evolutionary process, self-generated chaos is often self-sabotage.
Times of calm stability are times to savor the good already in your life. This is when you have the energy to deepen your friendships and expand your life in a more manageable and organized fashion. It is a place from which to give back and build a reservoir of good karma and support for times when you are in spiritual receivership.

Finally, it is usually desirable that the rivers that we kayak and those we whom we choose to run them share a common skill level. If we run rivers which are too difficult, we tend to experience disaster. If we take trips on rivers that do not challenge us, then we get bored and find something more engaging to occupy us. A river with just the right degree of difficulty for us brings out the best overall experience: exhilaration and confidence coupled with safety and success.

The same principle also applies to those with whom we journey on the river. Compatibility in skill level leads to a positive shared experience while incompatibility leads to chaos, conflict or disaster. Imagine going down a river that is too difficult for your confidence level with someone who is an adrenaline junky and impatient every time you want to pause and catch your breath. Conversely, think about how it would be to go kayaking with someone who is so timid and out of their depth that each little ripple is met with anguish and a desire to turn back. (It is really hard to turn back on a river trip once you are on the water.) The enjoyment of a good river trip arises from within, however for me what makes a great trip is the blending of my skill and interest level with those on the river with me, as well as from the overall stretch of water that we choose to run.

This is true in terms of your life and prosperity as well. In the end, as the Beatles said, "...the love you take/ Is equal to the love you make". We are going to attract into our life people who are at about the same overall level of consciousness that we have at the time. We all are going to outgrow some friends, relationships or jobs and some friends, relationships and jobs are going to outgrow us. Rather than blaming others for this, or in some other way finding fault, it is a wiser course to bless the time shared with them and trust that the love you received is equal to the love you gave.

Turn Turn Turn

2009-07-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

There is a time for every purpose under Heaven.

This lyric from the song “Turn Turn Turn”, made famous by the Byrds and adapted from the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, keeps resonating in my mind as I prepare to do something that I have never tried in my entire working career. I am going to take a three week sabbatical.

Up until now, I have always thought forward momentum came through working harder, longer, with more focus. The idea of Ease and Grace was just another way of saying to work smarter. The possibility of making forward progress in any endeavor while taking time away from work was simply beyond my comprehension. However, I have long ago passed the time when my level of physical and emotional exhaustion could be remedied by simple spiritual treatments. I am facing a level of burnout that simply leaves me no choice but to adopt a spiritual practice that is utterly foreign to my typical way of being in the world.

I love my work. I love the people I work with. I love the possibilities that are unfolding right now in so many areas. And yet, I need a break. My fear is that if I take a break I will interrupt the flow and stem the momentum. I have held this fear and made decisions based on this fear over and over again.

When I first graduated from college I sold carpeting. The #1 salesman for the company that I worked for had a heart attack and survived. His doctor told him to do nothing more stressful than paint. I remember the frustration of the sales manager who was annoyed about losing his top producer. He tried to convince the salesman to come back to work by offering to let him work part-time. The salesman said no and the sales manager was annoyed.

This story reminds me of the conflict in values that comes up for those of us who are focused on production and results rather than quality of life or balance in our life. We keep saying that we will take on just this one more project. We think that things will ease up next week, or next month or after we complete this next task. We are measuring the value of our life by our production. There is another way to look at life. I have never seen it, but I am going to experience it over these next few weeks.

If you are like me, then we both are so used to experiencing life from a driven perspective that we think we always have one more push. And this leads to exhaustion, hypertension and burnout. It leads to an unbalanced life of striving rather than allowing. That #1 salesman taught me a lesson. If I keep pushing and become the #1 at anything I focus on, there is also a cost, that I lose everything else that is dear to me.

A sabbatical is very different from a vacation. I see a vacation as an opportunity to recreate and relax. It typically includes lots of activity and enjoyment that is not work, but it is still an action-oriented endeavor. It is not an experience of going inward and reflecting. It does not encompass much stillness A sabbatical, on the other hand, is probably hard work. It is just not external results-oriented work, it is interior work. It is the work of the soul seeker taking time to listen deeply to the recesses of the heart.

A sabbatical is not taking time away from my spiritual work- it is approaching my spiritual work from a different direction. It is removing the busy distractions of the day-to-day logistics and details of my work so that I am free to go deeper into my heart and soul. At least that is what I am postulating.

So I am taking time to see what renewal feels like. I am taking time to see what it feels like to not work and not feel driven to do more. I am going to experience faith that there is a Higher Power that can do what I cannot do: allow momentum to build with me doing nothing overt to make things happen. There is a season. A time for rest. A time for work. And a time for every purpose under heaven.

Our Birthright is Joy because we live in an Abundant Universe

2009-06-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

We live in a wildly rich, diverse and abundant universe. Yet it seems that so many of us do not experience this opulence in our lives and instead lead lives of dreary desperation. If joy and abundance are our birthright and yet many of us are not experiencing either in their life, then simply acquiring more material goods would seem to be the solution. But in case after case we find that no matter what the material condition of the person, the sense of abundance and joy is fleeting and the sense of lack is pervasive. This experience of lack has several contributing causes and we will examine some of the key issues and then suggest a remedy.

First, the foundational field that we are born into and grow up in creates a “race consciousness” or embedded theology that is the deep underpinning of all that we come to believe. Since it is our thoughts that determine our experience, the combination of our embedded theology and our conscious affirmative thoughts are the prime factors for our present day quality of life.

For most of us, our subtle memory of our childhood culture is laced with the vibration of not enough. The prevalent childhood memory for most of us is not usually joy and abundance. Rather, it is the trauma of not enough that registers most deeply for many. Current research studies have shown that it takes about 10 good impressions to overcome one negative impression. This explains why even the best parents end up with kids that often feel that they were not special enough, not loved enough and so forth. Couple this with the impact of the Great Depression on the scarcity thinking of the whole country in the 1930’s and you can comprehend the deep resonance of not enough that weaves its way into our subconscious.

The overlay of Madison Avenue helps cement the race conscious idea that we are not enough. Advertising stimulates and reinforces the belief that something is missing and that we need it to be ok. Madison Avenue advertisers make money doing one thing brilliantly and that is stimulating demand for products. They accomplish this through print, radio, TV, internet and every other manner imaginable (Billboards, product placement in films, display ads on public transportation, sports stadium naming rights… the list goes on and on).

The News Media also play a part in reinforcing our underlying consciousness of anxiety and fear that accompany a feeling of not enough. The 24 hour news cycle is predominantly focused on crisis, drama, problems and conflict. TV, radio, Newspaper and Internet News sites rely on our reaction to trouble to draw audience and customers. They exploit the underlying unconscious belief that there is not enough to generate “news” that hooks people into thinking that they need more details and more information and so forth.

Finally, many politicians play a role in sustaining the cultural idea that we are not able to thrive abundantly. They get elected by enticing people with “lack thinking” to vote for them by exploiting the underlying idea that they need something and cannot get it through their own efforts. These politicians then promise solutions that do not require much effort or contribution by the voters, which creates a cycle of not enoughness. They campaign relentlessly in this manner on issue after issue as they cobble together a coalition to reach an electable majority. This idea that we are better off with government help tends to lead to an ever greater and greater dependence on government solutions.

Yet, in the end, it is only through shifting our own consciousness that we find a way out of this culturally embedded perspective that spirals away from our joy and abundance and instead leaves us with a life of anxiety and insecurity. This brings us to the practical side of spiritual teachings and the complex intersection of spiritual law, our core beliefs and strategies to get our needs met.

More material goods will not bring a sense of abundance and joy. A mere 50 years ago, most families did not have an automatic dishwasher, self defrosting freezer, micro wave, color television (much less a wireless remote on their big flat screen color TV) and so forth. Now many families have multiple cell phones, I pods, personal computers, refrigerators with built in ice makers and all the other fixings. Yet, overall the levels of satisfaction and happiness have not changed.

The Joy of Surrender

2009-05-20T21:06:00.001-07:00

I keep thinking about the idea that for each person and each situation there is a perfect balance between committed action and flowing with ease and grace.

There are several implications contained in this simple sentence. It seems to me that the most important is that committed action and flowing with ease and grace are presented as polar opposites which need to be balanced carefully by the wise seeker in order to manifest success. It seems that this is suggesting that if there is a perfect balance between committed action and ease and grace, then the more committed your actions are the less ease and grace you experience. The converse also seems implicit, that more ease and grace means that there less committed action.

The more I think about it, the less sure I am that this is true. In fact, the more I think about it, the opposite of this statement might be a more accurate statement of principle; that ease and grace appear only as a result of committed action. I am sure that I believe that half hearted actions taken with a lackadaisical intention lead only to mediocre results. Slackers may say they live with ease and grace but I doubt it. I think they live in a state of ambivalence and they inhabit a world devoid of success.

I can think of a few times where I felt ease and grace in my life that were coupled with success. I had spent many years learning and practicing the art of mediation. I had reached a level of skillful mastery. From this consciousness, I was able to facilitate high conflict situations to peaceful resolution with what appeared to be ease and grace. The ease and grace only showed up after many years of dedicated and consistent work on my part. I needed to learn the basics of mediation. I needed to develop the listening and speaking skills needed for success as well as the discernment of how to apply them.

These were the outer manifestations of deep inner work that was required to fully inhabit the spiritual principles of conflict resolution. In order to achieve this, I needed the willingness to heal many of my own inner conflicts. I needed to look deeply into my relationships and my failures in those relationships and develop empathy for those I had been close to and empathy for myself as well.

This brings me to the second implication in the idea that for each situation there is a perfect balance between committed action and ease and grace. That the only committed action that will inevitably lead to ease and grace is joyful surrender. This seems like a terrible a paradox. Until very recently I do not think I even considered that surrender was ever joyous. My only experience of surrender for many years was it occurred only when I was utterly worn down by repeated failure as a result of my committed actions. When I had nothing left, no energy or will, no reserves and no more ideas, then when I was faced with no other choice, I would surrender. At this juncture, I would be steeped in frustration and angry exhaustion. My moment of surrender would typically lead to a massive dose of humility and shame. I would feel grief and deep despair, even hopelessness over my failure to succeed through my determined plan of action.

But as I write this, I am aware that it was not my plan of action to become a gifted mediator. Instead, this idea literally came to me at a time when I was desperate and at the end of my rope. I was in counseling because my life was a mess. I was waiting in my car outside my therapist’s office trying to relax from another frazzled and frustrating day. My current romantic relationship was failing, my career was sinking and I had nowhere left to turn. Out of this nowhere a still small idea popped into my head that said I was a mediator. I did not even know what a mediator was, at that time I was a full bore, hard nosed litigator.

Yet this idea was so clear that I followed up on it immediately. I surrendered everything that I thought I knew about myself and my relationships and embarked on a path of learning to resolve conflicts with love rather than arguments or power. I began letting go of the image of the man I had become (hard nosed litigator) and began opening to the unknown man I was to become (peacemaker).

This moment of surrender was calm and peaceful but I am not sure if I saw it as joyous. The friction in my life at the time had exhausted me and the problems I had created did not dissolve immediately. But ease and grace entered my life in that moment. I found out that a once a year week long training for mediators began the very next Monday. I attended it. One thing opened up after another, not always the way I planned it. Not at all the way that I had hoped things would fall together, but in the end, looking back, I can see there has been a lot more ease and grace from that moment forward than there ever had been prior to my moment of surrender.

Here is a poem I came across by the Persian Mystic Hafez.

What is the difference between your experience of Existence and that of a Saint?
The Saint knows that the spiritual path is a sublime chess game with God.
And that the Beloved has just made such a fantastic move that the Saint is now continually tripping over with joy, and bursting out with laughter and saying "I surrender!"
Whereas, my dear, I am afraid you still think you have a thousand serious moves left.

Lessons from the Dragonfly

2009-05-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

One Core Value about prosperity is that for each person and each situation there is a perfect balance between committed action and flowing with ease and grace. Of course it takes spiritual maturity and the wisdom that comes along with this maturity to discern that perfect balance point.

Today, it is a beautiful spring day and I spent some time working in our yard. I was weeding and heard this odd buzzing sound. I was drawn to it and saw that a large and beautiful dragonfly was caught up in the deer netting we put out over our blueberry bushes. The sound I heard was the terrified and furious beating of its wings as it tried to escape from the tangled netting. I could see immediately that there was no way the dragonfly could escape alone and so began to untangle the netting so that the dragonfly could fly free. However, each time I moved the netting, the dragonfly accelerated its own attempts to get free and instead got itself more entrapped.

Standing there, I wished that the dragonfly could remain calm just for a second. Then I would be able to free it easily. Unfortunately, it simply could not resist flying deeper into the netting each time I began to unwrap it. The dragon fly had no capacity that I could see for spiritual discernment about when to flow with ease and grace. Instead it seemed to me that it was driven by fear and frustration. Perhaps the dragon fly was not really frustrated but that the sound of its wings beating a million times a second sounded like frustration to me. (I was unable to find reliable research about how many beats per second a dragonfly flaps its wings, but I know it is a lot)

The one great gift that all dragonflies have is two pairs of wings that beat independently of one another. They are by far Mother Nature’s best aerodynamic animal or insect. They can fly in any direction, even backwards. They can accelerate their speed in an instant and then decelerate just as suddenly. They can change direction in as little as three beats of their wings. Thus, their maneuverability in the air is extraordinary.

Another magnificent attribute of the dragonfly is its acute vision. Their eyes have 30,000 lenses and they can see in 360 degrees very clearly. They are especially great at detecting motion. Unfortunately, for this dragonfly that was caught in the netting, the combination of its two greatest gifts were ensnaring it and keeping it ensnared. Each time I moved the netting, the dragonfly would in a millisecond spot the change and then instantly aerodynamically adjust its position and press up against the netting even harder. All that did was continue its getting caught in the webbing.

It was amazing to watch this beautiful creature force itself further and further into captivity. Fortunately, compared to this dragonfly, one of humankind’s greatest gifts is problem identification and solving. Using my human skills I could see the problem, diagnose it and solve it in an instant. Using my adaptive reasoning I was able to move the netting in such a way that eventually the dragonfly got free.

The prosperity value holds that for each person and each situation there is a perfect balance between committed action and flowing with ease and grace, (In this case insects count as people). In the situation with the dragonfly and the netting, the logical thing for me to want the dragonfly to do was to just be calm for a second so I could easily and gracefully move the netting and release the insect. But looking at this situation more deeply, if the dragonfly had not been committed to action in buzzing its wings, and instead rested quietly on a twig, I would never have heard it. It would still be sitting there calmly until it perished. Only by its committed action was it able to get free.

Even though it looked to me in the moment like the dragonfly’s committed action was a hindrance to its objective of disentangling itself from the netting, in this case it was the committed action that resulted in success. This brings me back around to the main topic, that there is a lot of discernment needed to determine when committed action is warranted and when surrender to ease and grace is called for.

Just like I initially did with the dragonfly, people judging from the outside are often projecting their own issues into their interpretation of what is going on. Thus their perspective about the balance point between ease and grace and committed action may not lead to the perfect balance point for you. That is not to say that seeking wise counsel about your actions is not often warranted- it is imperative. But go to someone who is not activated by your situation, who is able to be discerning and give you real disparity and insight.

Definition of "Prosperity"

2009-05-13T17:36:00.001-07:00

As we consider our thoughts about “prosperity”, it is a good idea to understand what we mean by the term “prosperity” Here are a few contemporary authors and their definitions. You will notice immediately there is some overlap and divergence between each of these definitions posted. I hope that will reassure you that there is no single correct definition of prosperity. Undoubtedly, there are many additional definitions of prosperity that are to greater or lesser degrees workable. All of the definitions I quote are from reputable and successful authors and teachers.

Even though I discuss my thoughts about each definition, my intention is to share my own thoughts and stimulate your own thinking. I do not mean to be dogmatic. In the end, you are free to make your own call about the definition of prosperity that suits you. Or better yet, search your own heart to determine your authentic definition and understanding of prosperity rather than adopt someone else’s thinking. The benefit in doing this is that you will become clearer of what is true for you. Under anyone’s definition of prosperity, the idea of prosperity that you hold in your mind will be the one most prone to manifest in your life.

Ordinary perceptions on the concept of prosperity start with common definitions. Webster’s Dictionary sees prosperity in purely economic terms defining it as a condition of economic success or wellbeing. Under this definition prosperity is relative. Success implies failure. Wellbeing implies being unwell. Hence, under common perceptions, only a few can be prosperous at any given point in time. Moreover, Webster’s definition of prosperity is conditional. It implies a temporary state where the same person can be prospering at one point and then not prospering at another.

As a spiritual student, this type of definition brings up some interesting issues surrounding prosperity and spirituality. Is prosperity a birthright for all or is it a blessing for only a few? If it is a birthright, then how is it that some are born to wealth and others are born to poverty? If it is a blessing for the few, then how can some of the few have prosperity for a while and then vanish when economic circumstances shift?

If God plays favorites (the true believer vs. the agnostic) and if God rewards some (the obedient worshiper) and punishes others (the sinner), then in some cosmic way the problems with Webster’s definition are resolved. Prosperity is the blessing that is bestowed by God on his chosen few and the rest of us had better get right with God if we want a similar blessing.

But if we choose to believe in a God that unconditionally loves all human souls, then Webster’s conditional and temporal definition of prosperity does not work well. If God’s love is unconditional that means that it is available to all equally and all the time. A God that does not play favorites means that success and wellbeing are available to every one of us. Moreover, they are available all the time and everyone can have them at the same time.

Those of us on a spiritual path of Love need a working definition of prosperity that fits within the framework of unconditional love. That means prosperity cannot be dependant on outside circumstances that can change.

Edwene Gaines is a well known Unity Minister and a woman of power. She has elected to be 100% responsible for the transformation of abundance consciousness on Planet Earth. Her definition of prosperity has four components; 1) a vitally alive body, 2) thriving relationships, 3) work that we love and 4) all the money we can spend.

As I read this, and meaning no disrespect to Rev. Gaines, this definition of prosperity is all about material and physical wellbeing. It is really only an expansion of Webster’s definition to include enjoying good health and relationships. Her thinking does not seem to me to engage a spiritual dimension.

While I believe it is true that almost all of us can have vitality and wonderful relationships and fulfilling work, I think that a certain number of people are born without the apparent ability to manifest these blessings. Moreover, as I write elsewhere, prosperity and money have no correlation and so I take exception to the fourth component that requires prospering people to have all the money they can spend.

David Ritz, creator of the Keys to the Kingdom program, suggests that prosperity must include spiritual good in all its forms including health, happiness, peace, love, fulfillment and unlimited possibility. He says it is the “power to satisfy our needs and make our dreams come true.” This definition does include a passing sop to spirituality but, when looked at carefully, is only a minor improvement and expansion of Rev. Gaines’ definition.

The problem I have with Ritz’ definition is that it includes too much unconsciousness around possessiveness. Most people do not understand the difference between “needs” and “wants”. They want their needs to be met, sure, but they way they understand needs may include a massive dose of greed, selfishness, material conditioning and so forth.

Moreover, most people do not have any idea about their dreams coming true and the clash with reality caused by their egoic grandiosity. Thus, a fundamental definition of prosperity that talks about prosperous people having the power to satisfy their needs and make their dreams come true does not meet my need for clarity or truth. As this simple example shows, Ritz’ definition cannot be true. Say two people have a crush on the same person. Their dream is to be their beloved’s “one and only”. This dream cannot come true for both of them, especially if their supposed beloved isn’t romantically interested in either one of them.

Any definition focused on getting things outside of ourselves has this same defect. Shakti Gawain is another best selling author on the topic of prosperity. She wrote Creating True Prosperity. In a sincere attempt to skirt this problem she describes prosperity as the “experience of having plenty of what we truly need and want in life, material and otherwise.”

Her qualifier of need and want with the word “truly” and her inclusion of our nonmaterial good in the definition of prosperity are a step beyond Gaines and Ritz. The problem here is that people will be driven in circles trying to determine what they “truly” need and want. It goes back to the conditioning problem. Someone pampered and spoiled in life may really believe that they truly need something that the rest of us think of as a luxury. The collective unconsciousness about how to define “truly” means that this prosperity definition will not satisfy my need for unconditional inclusiveness.

I think the better definitions of prosperity describe a consciousness or a process of living rather than the things that one obtains or has. Grace Terry, author of Prosperity Guaranteed offers her definition: “A continuous process of joyfully receiving an abundance of everything we need and joyfully giving back from the overflow.” Terry begins by describing prosperity as a process but when she talks about receiving everything we need she falls into the same trap that befell the prior definitions; the difficulty in determining a valid need. Even if she had said “truly need”, I think this definition is really focused on having things rather than describing a state of being or a state of consciousness.

Another thoughtful teacher on the subject is Ellen Peterson, author of Choosing Joy, Creating Abundance. She says, “Prosperity is not what you have or how much you make; it’s actually how you think.” In other words, prosperity is a state of consciousness. If the consciousness in her definition did not rely on creating physical wealth to engender the joy, I would be more inclined to favor this approach. Instead, again, it is a better approach than some of the other definitions, but it still evidences the same shortcoming of prosperity being attached to physical wellbeing and success.

Maria Nemeth, author of The Energy of Money, says, “Prosperity comes when you participate fully in every aspect of your life. It’s state of growth.” What I like about this definition is that it is not conditional; everyone can be prosperous no matter what their circumstances. It does meet my need for prosperity to be a birthright available to everyone. It does describe a consciousness rather than possessions. On the other hand, this very lack of materiality might diminish the working value of the term ‘prosperity’. Prosperity might as well mean learning to live in a state of deprivation while learning to enjoy your own suffering.

Here is my current understanding of prosperity. Prosperity is the consciousness needed to bring about your heart’s joy, your mind’s inner peace, and your soul’s highest evolution in every material circumstance and condition.

Health and Prosperity Sore Ankle- pt 3

2009-05-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

So here I am; in my dream job and enjoying my ideal romantic relationship. My Universe is all good. My life is better than it has ever been and gets better each month. And I have a sore ankle from gout. I understand there is a mind body connection. Intuitively, it just doesn’t make sense to me to be feeling so good in my life day to day and then hold the perspective that stress is causing my body pain. (See the prior posts on that topic)

There must be another way to understand these physical symptoms that appear even when things are flowing smoothly. There is. Some in Unity call this process “chemicalization”. It means the stored toxins and body memories located in our body begin to be released from our cells as our consciousness becomes more aligned with spiritual truth and less aligned with material goods and worldly matters. The natural and healthy result of transformation on the spiritual path is thus occasions of physical symptoms that we typically would deem undesirable and perhaps even bad.

This idea of chemicalization was so uncomfortable to folks at Unity Village that for decades they deleted this subject from one of their best selling books. There are those who want to present a dogma that prosperity consciousness leads to good health and thus, any experience of bad health is a symptom of unhealthy consciousness. But dogma itself is not the Truth, it is the attachment to a certain idealized concept in spite of the truth.

So let’s look at my gout and my life situation more fully. I sold my home in California at the height of the real estate boom. Its value went up over $100,000 between the time I decided to sell it and the time I could get it on the market. I put the vast majority of proceeds into short term treasury bonds, and so while everyone in the stock market got hammered with the current financial meltdown, my assets held their value. I have all the money I will ever need. I am so well off that I can offer to increase my own tithe to Unity just to make the lives of others I care about easier.

My relationship with Debbie is better than it has ever been and it is growing deeper and more intimate as we work together in co ministry. She is a gem and I love her dearly. After so many years of being single and failing at relationship after relationship I feel so utterly blessed to have her as my sweetheart. Our home life is good, our garden is flourishing, I am eating for optimum health more and more consistently. My relationship with my adult children is likewise better than it has ever been. My son is in college and I am supporting him in many ways to become the young man he always wanted to be. My daughter and her boyfriend plan to take an extended vacation with us soon.

Over the past year we have grown our ministry in a way that is very satisfying to me, in that we have focused on depth of relationship rather than numbers. We are solvent or nearly so each month and are more fully aware of our core values concerning prosperity as we make decisions. We have aligned our services with the intimate connection we crave rather than in a fashion that might appeal to others but is unauthentic to ourselves. Debbie and I are taking vacations together now, trusting that the church will thrive even when we are gone for a Sunday now and then. My job satisfaction is higher than it has ever been- and I have been working for almost 40 years now.

My men’s team had a recent retreat that I helped lead which was exceptional for the gentleness and kindness that we shared. My work in the Unity Association has been immensely fulfilling and has brought me into deep companionship with other ministers in way that I had not imagined a few years ago. The healing here is truly astounding.

So, all of this good keeps flowing into my life and yet I have gout. I think it is more than just chemicalization, I think it has to do with breaking the trajectory that my ego saw for me when it had a vice grip on my life. My ego’s first and foremost job is to keep me safe- safe according to its immature understanding of safety. It is amazingly scary to my ego for me to love my job, to be doing what I love in a way that I love doing it.

To my ego, it feels vulnerable to have a loving relationship and friendships based on authentic connection. As I live more fully each day by building supportive and authentic relationships it brings up the insecurity of rejection. Each supportive friendship takes a little power away from my ego’s grip on my thinking. Each moment of success on the spiritual path diminishes to some small extent the deeply embedded attachment I had to the unconscious thought that I did not deserve a good life. This idea that I am not worthy of success and enjoyment is utterly false and the more I release it, the more chemicalization occurs.

Even writing about my success here feels scary, like a jinx will take it all away if I am not careful. But each day that I claim my good, and live well, then I am breaking that trajectory that held me in the grip of scarcity and fearful living.

Thus, perhaps this gout is a form of retaliation from my old thinking. My unconscious fear-based conditioning is trying to hinder me as I move toward authentic thriving. It is trying to pull me back into victim thinking and away from co creative empowerment. It is trying to slow down my turbo-charged success and make me doubt the truth of who I am. My exponential growth is leading to more and more good flowing to me as I connect more fully with my spiritual center and that undercuts the power of the ego to run my life.

Today, I am more determined than ever to allow my good to flow into my life. I will find the blessing in every situation and circumstance. I will be my Christ Self. I am alive to possibility today and willing to feel all the feelings associated with being truly prosperous.

Health and Prosperity- Sore Ankle-2

2009-05-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Sore Ankle- part 2

This evening I have a very sore ankle. I am thinking about my good fortune and prosperity and believe there is a golden nugget to share with you about this. Prosperity is often understood by many to mean having all the money you can spend. An expansive view of prosperity might include having all the money you can spend and the good health to enjoy all of your wealth. It might even include having money, health and all the good friends that money can buy.

I think prosperity is something different. I believe that prosperity is having the consciousness to manifest all of your good with ease and grace. “All of your good” includes constructive and supportive relationships, it includes having all of your physical needs met on time and abundantly, and it includes an evolution of soul that is often hard to see in the moment as good.

My ankle is sore because I have gout. I have gout because my body produces more uric acid than it eliminates. Even with modern medication to impact uric acid production, I still have symptoms of gout. Why might this happen? My brother has gout too, so it is likely an inherited trait. Still, my gout only flares up periodically. My activity and exercise do not change radically. My diet is good and is stable. Why would gout flare up now and not at other times?

Traditional mind body metaphysical thinking suggests that stress can impact our immune system and produce reactionary physical symptoms such as gout. Stress is caused by a consciousness that is attempting and failing to predict and control outcomes and dictate events. We get attached to a certain strategy for a period in our life. The emotional response to our perception that our strategy is not manifesting correctly (to our specifications) is grief. But rather than feel this grief, we choose to believe that if we worry and struggle harder we can change the outcome to be more in alignment with our preferences.

That worrying consciousness is fear based and leads to stress. It is a sign of resistance to our good. The energy expended in resistance depletes our immune system and throws our body out of optimum balance which then manifests physical symptoms such as gout. The solution here is to release our resistance and allow the fear to wash over us into grief. As we do this, we naturally surrender more and more fully until we reach a state of peace. In this condition of peaceful surrender, our body has the optimum conditions to replenish itself and thus heal itself. The basic premise of this approach is that the physical ailments are unhealthy. They are seen as symptoms of a problem and are a signal that we are off track.

This may be very true, but there is also a catch. Seeing physical symptoms as a warning is still a fear based approach to living. Reacting with fear to a health challenge is not a consciousness of surrender, instead it is still a symptom of trying to predict and control outcomes. It is a consciousness focused on managing our health care. This is not to say that a proactive response is not called for when we feel illness or pain in our body. Many times this is exactly what is being signaled and is exactly what is needed.

I once worked in a job where I had a very sore back. I was a new hire and had been given a very old and broken down chair. I complained and they got me a new ergonomic lumbar support chair. The symptoms went away for a week or so and then they returned. I thought that perhaps I was not getting enough exercise and began to swim every day during lunch. That did little to alleviate my back pain. I thought it might be stress related and so began to relax more and meditate more and work less hours and so forth. The back pain lessened but was not entirely alleviated.

I finally, against my will, left that job and went to work for myself. My back pain promptly disappeared. Obviously, I was under stress in my former job- it was not the right situation for me and my body’s pain was communicating this to me. The pain got my attention, but I did not have the willingness of my own accord to take the steps to alleviate my pain. It took me getting fired before I realized what was causing my back pain was my attachment to the security of working for others rather than co- creating my own life.

If prosperity is about security and a good paying job then I have nothing to teach. I think prosperity is about allowing our good to flow to us in every situation. Following my true nature and soul’s calling healed my back pain. No amount of lumbar support, stretching, exercise, meditation and relaxation would be any help in the face of me not living my own life.

Prosperity is not about money

2009-05-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

As we consider our thoughts about “prosperity” in these times of economic turmoil, it is a good idea to remember that money and prosperity are not correlated. I know this sounds radical to some readers who believe that prosperity and money are directly and 100% correlated, but let’s look at it more closely.

Jesus bluntly taught that prosperity as it is commonly understood is an absolute barrier to entering the kingdom of heaven. One day a seeker came to him who had been careful to follow all of the commandments and asked how to manifest the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said to make his move the seeker would need to sell all his possessions and donate the money to the poor. The seeker heard this guidance and walked away in dejection because he possessed a fortune. In one of his more famous quotes Jesus said “It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it was for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Mathew 19:1-24.

Jesus further taught that material wealth was worth nothing in comparison to the joy and peace that come from spiritual living. In another teaching couplet that is perhaps a little more subtle he described the kingdom of heaven as treasure buried in a field, and one who comes across this treasure sells every last possession in order to buy the field with the hidden treasure. Jesus then says the kingdom of heaven is like a rare pearl and a wealthy merchant sold all his goods in order to purchase this single priceless pearl. Mathew 13: 44-45.

The Buddha says that the fool laughs at generosity. The miser cannot enter heaven. But the Master finds joy in giving and happiness is his reward. He says that the True Master possesses nothing and wants nothing.

From this perspective of giving it all away and not holding on to any attachments, then all things good come to us. The kingdom of heaven is a consciousness that is purely at peace no matter what the outward circumstances. Thus, this teaching is a paradox because if we had this sense of inner peace and harmony with our true nature, then we would not seek or need anything that money could buy anyway.

You might wonder if this teaching holds up in today’s complex mercantile world. I will tell you about a friend of mine, he and his wife had always dreamed of spending springtime in Paris. They went to Paris a few years ago during the spring to enjoy the beautiful cherry blossoms blooming, and he had a heart attack. They both had been working hard long hours to climb the economic ladder. .He was rushed to a hospital and lived. His heart attack cut their trip to Paris short but it made a great story.

His heart attack might have been a wake up call for my friend to ease off and enjoy life and to take better care of himself. He did some of that, but his consciousness did not really change. He still wanted the good life and believed the way to get it was with money. He and his wife both worked in Real Estate. They owned a million dollar mansion with a pool and landscaped yard. Beautiful furniture and art work graced their home. They had a huge library of books and CD’s, traveled frequently and enjoyed fine dining and entertainment. They had two very upscale cars as they believed this was required by successful agents. All this looked very good from the outside and was very expensive to keep up from the inside.

As you know, the real estate business softened and then collapsed over the past couple of years. My friend decided to get a paying job while his wife kept up their real estate practice. He went from one job to another and then to yet another scrambling to make ends meet.

Finally, he could not continue. He now hated his work, hated his boss and all the wealth and success he had accumulated was not worth another moment of unhappiness. He resigned from this third job and began to surrender his attachment to high wages and all that money could buy. He began to appreciate and cultivate his relationship with Spirit. He vowed to continue on this path of surrendered living no matter what it might cost him in outward treasure.

He and his wife ended up bankrupt. They lost the two fancy cars. They lost their mansion in foreclosure. They gave away all their books and sold their artwork and furniture. They have nothing left of their grand life. Their wealth is gone. Their credit is toast. Today he has a simple sales job. He and his wife have next to nothing in terms of physical possessions; they rent a very small apartment. They have each other. Oh, one detail, the job and apartment are located in Paris, France. So, their dream of enjoying springtime in Paris came true. They are living the good life in the kingdom of heaven and it has nothing to do with money

Prosperity Thoughts – Sore Ankle-1

2009-05-08T19:34:00.001-07:00

I am writing this with a very sore ankle. Well, I am writing this by typing on my computer keyboard with my fingers while my ankle is sore. Having a sore ankle would not seem to impact my writing, but today I am grumpy. Since I am blaming my ankle for making me grumpy, then I guess my sore ankle is impacting my writing. Normally, writing while grumpy is not an optimum plan, but I think there is a blessing in this which leads to a point that I think may be helpful to you.

The first point is simply that I am choosing to let my sore ankle impact my mood. That is a choice that I make because I have been conditioned by our embedded human consciousness to blame my moods on things outside of myself. Carrying this one step further, I am choosing to blame embedded race consciousness for my own lack of accountability for how I feel in relation to my sore ankle.

I could just as easily not allow my sore ankle to affect my mood or my writing. Why would I decide to allow my sore ankle generate a grumpy mood and affect my writing? It stands to reason that I would do this only when I perceive that there is a positive payoff. Even if my pay off calculation is entirely unconscious, I must believe that somehow I will be rescued in some fashion. Thus, it follows that my rational short term choice is to play victim, blame my sore ankle on my mood and try and reap the supposed rewards.

If you have read this far, then you know this is not empowered living. This is victim thinking. As I mentioned earlier, I could just as easily choose to be in a good mood even with a sore ankle. I could consciously recognize that the consequences of being in a grumpy mood will create a vibration of grumpy energy that will come back into my life. Faced with this awareness, it only makes sense to choose to be grateful and joyful not matter what my circumstances.

To those of you that might think this is hard to do, I introduce to you Phil Packer. He is about to finish the London Marathon, a 26 mile run. He will come in dead last- about 13 days behind all of the other runners. He is very very sore and not the least bit grumpy. You see just over a year ago he was serving as a military policeman in Iraq. One day sirens went off warning of a mortar attack. He got out of his vehicle and took cover but the vehicle rolled over on him and crushed him terribly.

Phil was paralyzed from the waist down. The initial prognosis was that it was likely Phil would never be able to walk at all. The doctors said he just did not have the coordination to take steps. It takes a huge amount of his concentration to send a message from his brain to his legs because his spine is crushed. He was determined to focus his will and walk unaided. (Phil of course uses crutches). It took him months of hard work, and just a couple of months before the London Marathon he had progressed to being able to walk unaided. A few weeks before the Marathon start date he could walk just one mile per day.

Now, he is able to walk about two miles per day- the maximum that his doctors believe is safe for him. At this rate, it will take 13 straight days to walk the London Marathon. (He should finish Saturday, May 9^th, 2009).

Is he grumpy about this?

No. He feels very fortunate to have any mobility. He has turned this accident into a blessing by using it to raise money for those at the surgical center that helped him recover. He said that while in the surgical recovery program he needed something to motivate himself during some very dark and painful times.

We all, each of us, have the same capability of this sort of grit and determination. There is a choice that we face with every circumstance. We can find a way to turn it into a blessing or we can claim we are victims. If we want prosperity, then we find the blessing in what ever circumstance we face. If we choose prosperity then we trust Spiritual Law to manifest it for us.

In reading about Phil, my sore ankle doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. In writing this, I can tell that I am not so grumpy. Nothing changed but my attitude. Everything changed when my attitude shifted.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

2009-05-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Today, for our May prosperity thoughts, we will look into the metaphysical meaning in the simple ditty “April Showers Bring May Flowers”.

On the surface, this rhyme describes a simple truism, that there is a cause and effect under Natural Law. This is perhaps most telling in the Mohave Desert, a very dry and often barren place that gets a few sprinkles of rain most years. These sparse drops of rain are sufficient to create an abundant display of wildflowers that is world famous. The wildflowers seem to sprout from nowhere in the desert sand and rocks. They bloom and die within a very short season at the lower elevations. They bloom and fade a little slower at the higher elevations, but by mid May the blooms are mostly gone.

Every half dozen years or so, the desert gets a splash of real rain. In those years the entire desert floor and hillsides are somehow covered with beautiful wildflowers. It is truly amazing that such abundance lies dormant year after year until a real rain comes.

This is exactly how it is in our life as well. We are always blooming but sometimes outside circumstances do not look glorious. Metaphorically, “blooming” infers growing and blossoming. When we look at this metaphysically then it would indicate the expansion of our consciousness. This process goes on to the degree we are open and receptive no matter what the weather report says. Rainy season, we are expanding our consciousness to thrive in the rain. Dry Season, we are growing consciousness too, to evolve more highly in apparent dryness.. Cold nights, hot nights, still days, windy days, bright and sunny days, cloudy and overcast days, we are growing in consciousness.

Here is then a key point; outside conditions do not hinder our spiritual evolution unless we allow those external conditions to impede our growth.

What is really going on for us is like the wildflowers in the Mohave Desert. We are blooming in springtime- and in human consciousness it is always springtime—yep, all the time. Yet, because of our egocentric expectations (which are often fueled by unconscious self hatred), we often feel like we are in a deep drought. In truth, we are in fact thriving in the natural flow of life. Unfortunately for our serenity, we cannot often see these dry spells as part of a larger cycle because we are focused on the temporary rather than the eternal.

A deeper awareness of our own spiritual process would lead us to realize that it is in these times of apparent drought that we actually grow the most. It is, for example, easy to be grateful when things seem to be going our way. It is often much more difficult for us to be grateful when things do not seem to be coming our way. So, in order to really learn to appreciate the little drops of joy that come into our awareness we need some dry spells.

Rather than understanding that spiritual growth in an inside job we tend to look at outward conditions and judge our growth by external benchmarks. Thus when we get some May showers, we get a burst of prosperity and selfishly conclude that is how it should be all the time. It follows then that we act like our life is in a drought the rest of the time. When we are not getting the results we crave, compared to those rare desert blooms that occur after the May showers, we often become dispirited.

Here is the second main point. There is a secret of many of those desert flowers. Due to the long dry months the flowers develop deep roots. Their roots are adapted to thrive where they are located and are almost like a carrot in shape. These roots are capable of storing lots of moisture that is efficiently wicked from the dry desert sand during the rainy season and then used sparingly in the long dry spells that follow. If it were not for those long dry spells, the plants would not grow these deep roots- rather they would grow wide and shallow roots during the rainy season. If that were the case, the desert plants would then die off during the dry season.

The roots on these desert flowers are exactly like our own soulful consciousness. If we grow and deepen our consciousness year round, especially during the dry seasons, then it will help us thrive in those times when we do not seem to be in the flow. And, when the flow arrives, we will be ready to burst on the scene in our radiant glory. The desert flowers are growing year round. They bloom in May, not just because of the spring showers, but mostly because they have been growing during the dry spell as well.

Planting Seeds Spring 2009

2009-04-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

Planting Seeds

The springtime is the season for planting seeds. Let’s look at the metaphysics of this. Seeds are a metaphor for divine ideas, so when we talk of planting seeds metaphysically we are talking about investing in divine ideas.

Many New Thought teachers suggest that their students set an intention and then also establish a due date by when their divine idea is supposed to manifest into being. This is like planting a seed and then telling Mother Nature when it is supposed to sprout and blossom. I disagree with this approach because it looks to me like someone is suggesting that we can dictate to God when our good should arrive. If adopted, then this teaching leads to an expectation that is likely to result in disappointment and disillusionment.

Imagine someone wants to manifest a new job or a new relationship by a date certain. The only way this can occur is through the interplay of their consciousness and Divine Order or through self will. If it is through their consciousness, then they are committing to a path of self awareness that may or may not be in parallel with the timetable they set to manifest their good. If by self will, I am sure you can see that it is likely to be manifested only through force and not through ease and grace.

When we plant seeds in the garden, our job is to prepare the soil and provide water and choose a location with the right amount of sunlight and so forth. We thus create conditions for Mother Nature to do her work on her timetable. The seeds sprout and the buds bloom according to Divine Law and not on our timetable. So it is with Divine Ideas.

I have the lifetime dream to be a friend, mentor and confidant to both my children for their entire lives. This dream needs to be cultivated just like any garden. I call my kids, and return their calls with great intention. I spend quality time with them each year entering their world and doing things that enhance their lives and sense of well being.

What I want to point out, however, is that the seeds coming to fruition in this Divine Idea now were planted some decades ago, when my children were very young. There were many years in between where this dream of mine did not look like it would ever bear fruit. I could not dictate to my children and in fact to be a friend confidant and mentor, I needed to allow them to co create a relationship that worked for them.

Here is a recent example of a Divine Idea coming into bloom in its own time. When my children were very little, my ex wife and I divorced. Consequently, they spent a few days a week at my house and most of the time with their mom. When they would visit me, I would take them into the yard and have them look for new flowers that had bloomed or bulbs that had come up or whatever had changed in the garden. They loved finding new things in my garden and showing them to me. Then as they grew older they seemed to loose interest and finally when they were in their late teens they rarely came to my house to visit.

My daughter now lives a thousand miles away from me. She has her own condo and Debbie I recently went to help her plant a few flowers bordering on her patio. One would hardly call it a garden. We planted some bulbs as well and this spring they began to come up. My daughter was all excited and called to give me for daily up dates. (I would typically expect to hear from her perhaps once per month which was a substantial up grade from a long while of only hearing from her a few times a year). Then when they bloomed she would send me digital photos, of each color of flower blooming.

What is important here is that as far as I can tell, she does not remember at all when she was very little and would tramp around my garden when I had visitation. For her, this is all new and all her idea and all about her little patio garden. Only I know it is answered prayers for God’s guidance on a Divine Idea that took 20 years to bear fruit.

So my suggestion is to plant the seeds in soil well prepared and let Divine Mother manage the timing.

April Prosperity Thoughts - The Wisdom in the Tomb

2009-04-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Affirmation: Be Still and Know that you are God.

As Easter approaches, Christians and non Christians alike can benefit from remembering that everything which happened to Jesus factually -as reported in the Bible -applies metaphysically in our own lives. Here is an application of a portion of the Easter story that few teachers focus on.

First, for those who are not so versed in the details of the Bible, here is a quick summary of the last week or so of Jesus life. At this juncture, Jesus is at the height of his powers and has just raised Lazarus from the dead. Word spreads quickly and he now knows that he must come in from the hick towns and minister in the capital of all Judea, Jerusalem. When he arrives, he is treated to a hero’s welcome while at the same time, he knows his fame and power makes him a threat to both the Roman Empire as well as the Jewish Religious Establishment.

He has many followers including a dozen or more committed disciples. He knows he is facing a show down with the Jewish leadership (when he arrived in Jerusalem he went to the high temple and confronted the entrenched practices of the priests and temple officials for their corruption and dishonesty), and on a high holy holiday (Passover) he has a lovely banquet with his key followers. He knew then that he would have to surrender all the glory and power that he had amassed and so afterwards went to a nearby garden, Gethsemane, and prayed deeply for reassurance and peace.

He then was arrested and tried by the Jewish High Priests for blaspheme against God. Rather than defend himself, Jesus remained calm and assertive of the truth of his being. As part of the Passover tradition one criminal was to be freed, however the very crowd that had adored Jesus a few days earlier demanded the freedom of another petty criminal. Jesus then was brutally beaten, publicly ridiculed and hung on the crucifix to die a terrible death.

During this ordeal, all his formerly loyal disciples abandoned him and perhaps his favorite disciple, Judas, actively betrayed him. He was utterly alone. He refused a quick death or mind numbing drugs and died in great agony with two common criminals along side of him. At his moment of death he is utterly forlorn, asking “Why God have you forsaken me”?

I think that all of us can relate to this experience of thinking that we are on top of the world. Our life looks like everything is coming up roses, that we are truly masters of our universe, and then suddenly, it all turns to black. We loose everything we held dear, we feel alone and abandoned, our heart feels numb. Our whole body and soul ache desperately for any comfort or peace. We may not actually be crucified, but emotionally and physically we feel like we have been crucified. If we can relate to this experience in our own lives, then we can metaphysically apply the teachings hidden deep within the story of Jesus.

This Easter tale of Jesus does not stop with his crucifixion. After his death, he is buried in a tomb and after 3 days in the darkness, he is said to be reborn again. It is this interlude in the tomb that I want to expound upon this Easter. In the tomb, Jesus has fallen to the absolute low point and yet from this he resurrects into an even higher level of mastery. Metaphysically, this explains that we must let go of our attachment to our present level of mastery and go into the depth of the unknown as we prepare for the next phase. Let’s look at this a little closer.

Prior to being crucified, Jesus is betrayed by his closest comrade, Judas. He is abandoned by his disciples, rejected by his more general followers and vilified by his religious leaders. One the cross he even feels abandoned by God. Thus, in the tomb, there is no outside force upon which Jesus can rely. Thus, there is no political or religious power available to him. He is alone.

In the tomb Jesus has lost all physical power as well. It is pitch black, he cannot see anything. His bones and body are broken by the beating he took. His life force is depleted due to the crucifixion. Thus, he has no physical strength to rely on. The tomb is a small cave, there is no room to move or maneuver, he must lie there completely still in the darkness. It is on a remote hillside and a massive stone closes the opening. Even if he could call for help, no one could hear him or soothingly touch him or offer him any other medical assistance. Thus, while in the tomb, Jesus has nothing left; nothing physical or emotional or political.

Jesus has nothing except one remaining item: his consciousness. This represents a place of absolute surrender. For three days (which is not necessarily a real measurement of time anyway since we are looking at this in a metaphysical framework) Jesus is alone with his consciousness and his faith in it. There are no distractions and no other happy endings except what he can manifest through his own consciousness.

I mention faith, because just before Jesus enters Jerusalem he raised Lazarus from the dead. What if this was a dry run and not just an ordinary miracle? What if it was the basis for Jesus’ faith in his ability to master death so that when he was in the cave alone, with nothing, he still had the knowing that he could resurrect Lazarus and so perhaps he too could rise again? I do not know the answer to this, but I do wonder if lying in the tomb, alone with nothing, if there wasn’t a glimmer of hope for Jesus because he had done it before. Maybe not exactly the same, but close enough that even though he did not know how, his faith would pull him through this death experience into a re birth experience.

The Tibetans, as I understand it, believe that each loss and the grief we experience throughout our life, is but practice for the moment of death when we are faced with the ultimate sense of loss. They believe that if one can stay conscious at the moment of death, and surrender completely, then one can transcend the cycle of life, death and rebirth in this plane of existence and move into the next higher realm.

To my mind, we each are going to face some difficult or impossible losses on our spiritual path. We are going to face things that feel insurmountable. We are going to think they are impossible to bear- I know this because I have been right there and I know that many of you have been in your own version of this as well.

In terms of our prosperity, a partner we rely on is going to betray us, loyal customers are going to abandon us, and promising endeavors are going to turn to disasters. Everything that is not God is going to fail us, and in the face of that we are going to thing that God too has forsaken us.

In this moment, we can turn to the story of Jesus in the tomb. He had nothing but his consciousness, and that consciousness transformed in the three days so that he was able to resurrect. In the same fashion, as you know, the problems we face cannot be solved at the level of consciousness that created them. There must be transformation. The stillness and the darkness in the tomb represent this time for focused transformation. When it is complete, when we have mastered our past and surrendered our attachments, then we are ready for the next phase of the Easter story, the resurrection.

Ease and Grace- A Place of Perfect Balance- pt 3

2009-03-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

Ease and Grace- A Place of Perfect Balance—pt 3

We have been looking at the concept of living with Ease and Grace. How this feels on the macro level (Like being in the Kingdom of Heaven) and how it feels in the context of being in the Divine Flow (Not like we would expect it to feel). Now we look more deeply at Ease and Grace itself.

Ease and Grace is about the balance of energy. When that which Flows In matches up with our needs, it feels like abundance. When that which flows out is greater than what we perceive as flowing in, we experience that as loss. When that which flows in is not perceived as meeting our needs, then we experience that as scarcity. So, to fully comprehend Ease and Grace, we need to understand Balance.

On an energetic level, money is worthwhile only because other people are willing to trade their time and talent for it. Money has no intrinsic value in and of itself. Confederate Banknotes towards the end of the Civil War were worthless. German Deutschmarks were inflating so fast after the First World a War that people carried them in wheelbarrows so they could buy a loaf of bread. Thus, in order for us to operate with Ease and Grace, we must optimize our personal balance between money, time, talent and energy.

Ease and Grace involves an understanding that that I have gifts to share, and that in sharing them, the Law of Circulation provides that I will have the resources to meet my needs. This works provided my consciousness is not tipping the process out of balance. Thus if I invest my time and talent (creativity and skill and wisdom) in a way that is aligned with my overall value structure, then the Universe will successfully provide me with the opportunity to generate all that I need. What I do with the opportunity will determine how much stress I invite into my life or how much time I gratefully spend living in the Land of Milk and Honey.

If we are under earning for example, then we are trading our time and talent for less than full value. Living and working from this posture leaves us tired (if not exhausted), unfulfilled (if not depleted) and creatively stifled (if not suffocated). The reason we would choose this experience is deeply embedded in our consciousness. For me, it was tied to my sense of self worth, or more accurately my sense that I did not have any self worth. In this circumstance, no amount of material goods would compensate for the deep seeded issue underlying my under earning until the issue itself had been healed. To find a path of Ease and Grace, I thus had to be willing to do the hard work of examining my actions in any area when I did not feel fairly (or handsomely) compensated.

If we are now consciously expending our resources in a manner that is congruent with both our values and our desires, we are out of balance. This often shows up as being in debt. Energetically we are not living in Ease and Grace and the stress of meeting our current needs as well as paying off the debt (being out of balance) will wear on us. The remedy is to be fully aware of our choices around how we spend our money.

Penny Pinching is another symptom of not living from Ease and Grace. It involves over valuing money and undervaluing time and energy. This leads to exhaustion. One personal example is that I was recently shopping for paper plates for our hospitality on Sunday. The first place I went seemed to be too expensive and so I went to another store. They did not have the type I wanted and so I went to yet another store. The paper plates were the same price as the first place, which still seemed too high for me. (We are talking about something like $2.50 for 50 plates). In the end, I went to 5 stores to buy 50 paper plates for $1.99. Thus, I was willing to trade hours of my time for a 51 cents savings for the church. Trust me, this thinking will never lead to Ease and Grace.

One of the most common inhibitors from us living more fully in the Kingdom of Heaven is when we take on the work of rescuing others from the consequences of their decisions. In these situations, we are then not only expending our energy in doing that which is ours to do, we are also doing that which is truly someone else’s to do. Far from being rescuing them, this inevitably leads to exploitation or resentment for the other person not carrying their share of their own load.

Having someone take care of us in this fashion may feel like the Kingdom of Heave for a short while. But over time it dis-empowers us and we develop a dependency that quickly weakens us. We cannot find that level of profound contribution which is so satisfying when we are continually trying to get someone to do what in our hearts and souls we know is our to do.

In a similar fashion, Ease and Grace are never available when we continually try to take more than we give. In the very short run it may feel like we have gotten over on the Universe when we do not offer our fair share. However, the Law of Karma operates perfectly and in the end we are diminished when we try and take advantage of the generosity of others. Speaking from my own experience, we soon begin to feel shame surfacing and the temporary sense of smugness disappear.

Living in Ease and Grace is finding the balance on what is ours to do and what is ours to have done. There are often things that we are not easily capable of doing or that we do not enjoy doing. There are things that are confusing to us or outside the area of our expertise. In these situations it is invaluable for us to see Ease and Grace operate to find a balance between what is ours to do and what is not ours to do. It is the mark of a sage that knows the tradeoff in expending our time, talent and energy in creating that which is truly ours to do, (and being rewarded with money), while also knowing that some other soul is eager to trade their time, talent and energy to help us with those things that are not really ours to do. (while they too are being rewarded with money). Getting our car repaired might be a good mundane example. For those of us reading this that don’t see ourselves as mechanically inclined we could spend many frustrating hours trying to do simple car repairs that would leave us feeling anything but like we are living in the Kingdom of Heaven. For others, perhaps it is housework or doing taxes. Whatever the onerous job that we seek to avoid, someone in the Universe feels is their life calling (or furthers their life’s calling) and Ease and Grace allows us to have energy flow from us to them and back again to get both of our needs met perfectly and smoothly.

Ease and Grace- Being in Divine Flow- pt 2

2009-03-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ease and Grace- Being in the Divine Flow--pt 2

In this post, I want to clear up some common misperceptions about how it feels to be in the Divine Flow. As we noted in an earlier post, the quantity of Ease and Grace we experience in our lives is directly related to our ability to live in the Divine Flow.

The Divine Flow is a current of energy that is organized by an intelligence that correlates your intentions with those of everyone around you while at the same time perfectly executing the Law of Karma (the Law of Circulation). Simultaneously it co creates a world that meets all of your deepest needs on time and abundantly and as well as fulfills your life purpose on a Soul level. This level of multitasking and sophistication confounds the human ego while it is also trying to predict and control and manage our lives. When these two forces are aligned it is the Kingdom of Heaven, when they are in total conflict, it feels and looks like Hell. Most of us live somewhere between and this feels like life like a life of quiet desperation. A contemporary bumper sticker reflects this struggle with the phrase “Life’s a Bitch and then you Die.”

People that are not aware of the nature of the Divine Flow often take actions that pull them out of the Divine Flow and put them into a stretch of life that looks like raging rapids or tumultuous water. Some people end up exhausted because they are actually rowing as hard as they can against their Divine Flow without evening knowing it. Others feel abandoned by God because they cannot find the flow, while they are paddling to stay in a side channel eddy or anchored in permanently in their Soul’s backwater.

The most important thing to remember about the Divine Flow is that it almost never looks or feels like you believe it is supposed to look and feel. It rarely feels the same way twice. The best practice for you then is to think like a river rafting guide in the spring. No matter how well you think you know the Divine Flow, check out the river after the stormy winter before taking your first run of the season. Talk with others that have run that stretch of water before. (Build a relationship with a minister/spiritual director). Take an exploratory trip with some senior guides skilled in whitewater rescue. (Have a spiritual community and support group). When you are in the slow season, read some guide books and keep in shape so that when you hit the Big Water, you are not overwhelmed. (Keep up with your daily spiritual practices).

At any given time, Divine Flow can feel like one of the following. By the way, keep in mind, sometimes one area of our life will feel one way and other areas will feel another way.

Circle or Dead Loop. If you are covering the same ground over and over again, obsessing about the same problems, holding onto the same hurt feelings, reacting to the same pattern of fears then you are in a dead loop. Best practice would be to change your thinking and the best way to do that is to choose a tough instructor and pray for a quick breakthrough.

Pulse. This is commonly stated as “two steps forward, one step back”. The Divine Flow feels like Divine Fits and Starts. Your good seems to come in small bits with long lulls of stagnation between surges of blessing. This is sometimes a signal of your own powerful resistance to your good, but conversely can also be 2nd force arising up to test the quality of your intentions for transformation. If the lulls are long, then it is most likely resistance, if the steps back feel sharp and intense then it is likely that you are experiencing second force.

Wave. Divine Flow can be experienced as a wave. This is characterized with a fair amount of up and down movement coupled with an increment of forward movement. This is a very normal process of allowing time to integrate changes and to prepare for the next surge. If the waves are large ups followed by large downs then the key skill to acquire is to relax and stay calm at both ends of the wave cycle. If the waves are very small and repetitious then you might look to see if you are deadening your experience.

Turbo Flow. This feels like an exponential curve where you look back and cannot believe the progress you have made. Your good keeps appearing in greater and greater measure as you keep saying yes without knowing how you are going to manage all of the abundance. One helpful key here is to remain humble, this too shall pass. If you want Turbo Flow to continue I suggest being grateful, give back to all those that have helped you generously and remain courageous.

Crash and Burn. This feels exactly what it sounds like. It signifies that you were committed to a wrong track and were ignoring signals (intuitions) to make changes and so in order for your good to arrive, you needed to let go completely of whatever you were overly attached to ( addicted to) that was less than your highest good. There is no “wrong track” spiritually, but if you set an intention and hold to it using tactics that are not aligned with the intention then sooner or later you will crash and burn. The good comes when you set an intention and then adopt tactics that will allow the intention to manifest.

Chaos. Chaos is experienced when nothing makes sense, nothing feels congruent, and too much is happening at once for you to easily manage but at the same time you do not quit on your good. When the Divine Flow feels chaotic it often means that you are in the midst of major greatness flowing your way while major good is still present. On the other hand, it can indicate that you are ambivalent about your good and keep canceling out your opportunities.

Brick Wall. This is what crash in burn will feel like a few cycles before the actual crash and burn. It is when you are still determined that your good must come to you in a certain fashion or though a certain channel when Spirit has other plans. This also could be, or course, what it feels like when 2nd force is melting and you are tempted to quit just before the miracle. A skilled veteran coach is essential here to help you determine how to move forward from this point.

Glacier. It feels much bigger than anything you can control or withstand. This is a force that will not quit. When Divine Flow is pushing like a glacier it is often painful, it continues to grind and propel all that is in front of it forward. It will methodically scour everything out of its way, but slowly and painfully. When Divine Flow is pulling from Glacier mode it is like a magnetic draw that keeps you headed for your good (a giant tractor beam from Star Trek that will not let go).

Dark Night of the Soul. This is when you wish that you had just merely crashed and burnt. This is being in the crucible. It feels dark, and alone and eternally separate from the flow of good. Mystics say this is a great place because Spirit never gives us more than we can truly handle. Suicide Prevention counselors wonder about that. You need help here and the willingness to ask for and receive help if very far away for most of us in our Dark Night of the Soul.

There are of course an infinite number of variations on how Divine Flow shows up. Each one of us must at some level navigate this dynamic energy field in our lives. Just remember that Divine Flow is dynamic, it is always changing. It is always present and it is rarely going to show up in the fashion we think it should.

Ease and Grace in times of turmoil- pt 1

2009-03-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Ease and Grace in Times of Turmoil

Wouldn’t you be pleased if there was more Ease and Grace in your life? If there were fewer struggles and less stress in your day to day experience wouldn’t then there be ample room for more bliss and tenderness? How would you like it if your life got easier? These are the questions many people seek answers to in times of turmoil.

Ease and Grace are usually the resultant experiences we have when we are in the Divine Flow. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is available from within, and to my way of understanding the Kingdom of Heaven feels just like Ease and Grace. So, if we want Ease and Grace, if we seek the Kingdom of Heaven then we just need to find the Divine Flow.

The Divine Flow is an energetic field that is systematically and intelligently organized to bring us our good. In order to tap into the Divine Flow we first need to deeply understand the concept of “our good.” Our highest good always includes the highest good of all concerned. Whenever we operate from the fear that there is some sort of competition for our good or think that someone else’s gain is our loss, or that someone or something is against us, then we have utterly crimped our ability to experience life as Ease and Grace. Jealously, envy or trying to show up someone else are sure signs that we are in the struggle rather than in the Flow.

Another challenge is that some of us have been conditioned to think that the Universal Flow of our good always feels good. This is manifestly inaccurate and resisting this Truth often inhibits the flow of good into our lives. The Universe is always aiming at our highest and best long term good and when we want to settle for mediocre short term good we experience conflict, fear and discord. In the face of the Universe bringing to us our highest good we need to surrender deeply our judgment of how it should feel.

Flow means Flow, which means that we must let go to be in the flow of Divine Good. When we latch on to something that we think is our good, and want to hold on to it because we are sure it is our good, it is likely that we are inviting suffering into our lives. All things must pass, they come and go, and to the extent we get overly attached to things we create an environment that leads to suffering. This is the great teaching of the Buddha.

Thus, Ease and Grace requires a subtle surrender and detachment from all things that are not permanent. In our culture we tend to attach meaning to things that are not intrinsically valuable. Our jobs, our money and cars and homes and vacation time shares should be held very lightly if we want to live in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The other aspect about the Divine Flow feeling good is that our highest good is often about our Soul’s evolution. Our Ego self wants to be secure and safe, to be right and to look good. About the time that our Ego thinks we have it made, our Soul is looking out for a new experience and if we hold on to the present and resist our destiny (dharma is a better word for this) then we are signing up for pain and suffering. In order to remain in the Divine Flow then a good practice is to remain very humble and open to loving what is unfolding in our lives.

The Universe is organized to bring us our good. It is amazingly responsive to our yearnings. For example, just about everything that we have now did not exist 100 years ago. Think of all the women washing dishes by the sink who were yearning for a machine to automatically clean the dishes. That yearning led to the manifestation of the Divine Idea of a dishwasher, which is now commonplace in every new home and apartment built.

Unfortunately for those of us that want to live in Ease and Grace, Madison Avenue discovered this correlation between our yearnings and our sense of well-being and has been manipulating us ever since. For example, people wanted personal credit (which did not exist 50 years ago) so they could have things now and pay for them later. Consequently, credit cards were invented. The problem is however, that our personal consciousness does not always evolve at the same rate as our social technology and so we get into a jam when we want things and more things and then more things on top of that. This confusion about what is truly ours to have vs. the things that we stubbornly demand is born out of a materialist mind set promulgated by Madison Avenue marketers to sell their products. Expecting the Universe to meet our every demand on this basis is childish.

To enter the Kingdom of Heaven then we need enough spiritual maturity to discern the difference between a need and an obsession. What is something that serves life and allows us more freedom to do what we are called to this planet to accomplish then that which we are yearning for might show up as a need. (Needs in this context are not just bare survival needs). If the product or service that we are wanting is motivated by a desire to look good, to be right or to please another person, then it is more likely than not laced with materialistic values rather than life enhancing wonderment. When we are striving to acquire things that do not truly enhance our life we end up depleted or in debt.

Many spiritual traditions of both the East and the West renounce possessions to avoid this very trap. Unfortunately, possessions are not the barrier to a life of Ease and Grace. In New Thought we have no resistance to Truth Students seeking nice things, so long as they are aware of the risk of excessive attachment to them and the impact that attachment will have on our entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

Freedom from Economic Insecurity

2009-03-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

Prosperity Thoughts March 2009

The question “Where can you reliably turn for economic security in times of financial turmoil?” is on the minds of a lot of people these days. I have some thoughts that might be helpful.

First, the ultimate point is that the source of freedom from economic insecurity is God.

Some people think that their job or their wages is their source of security. I read today that 1/10^th of all workers in California are presently out of work. In the greater New York City area approximately 100,000 MBA types that used to earn over $100,000 per year have been laid off in the past few months. Construction workers, real estate agents, mortgage brokers as well as thousands of other professionals are being laid off or are functionally unemployed. Jobs are inherently insecure.

Some people rely on their home for security. They thought that the equity in their home would always be there as a nest egg. Ha! Home values have dropped over 20 % in the past year. In some places they have dropped much more. In many markets the backlog of homes for sales is two years or more, so the only people that can even sell their homes are doing so at a deep discount. Real estate does not offer security any longer.

Stock Indexes and many investment accounts are down 20% in just the past month. Many once blue chip stocks have lost nearly all their value. GM is on the verge of bankruptcy, Citicorp shares are selling for under a dollar each. The great investment genius of our lifetime, Warren Buffett has lost multiple billions of dollars this past year. Hedge Funds and private equity funds have been hammered in the past year. Even money market type accounts, supposedly the safest of the safe have been wiped out. There have been two reported frauds in money market type investments where the outright losses appear to be in excess of $50 billion. Investments are inherently risky.

Given the massive deficit in the US, there is no doubt that dollars are going to suffer significant inflation in the next few years. The value of commodities has gyrated all over the place. Oil is way down after reaching historic highs just last summer. Gold, Silver and Platinum are up and down and risky. Cotton was at an all time low and then is now gone way up in price.

Retirement programs are also insecure. Private Annuities and Pension programs have lost 33% and more in their value this past year as the stock markets have tanked. The entire Social Security program is terribly underfunded. The State and local PERS programs have lost billions in the stock crash and were underfunded to begin with so they now face a horrific shortfall. All those government workers that think they have a sure thing are likely to find out that the tax payers just cannot earn enough to cover the costs of those pensions. Voters are fickle.

In the face of all this upset, many people are turning to politics and government to bail them out. Governments however do not create wealth, they redistribute it. Those in favor today will be out of favor in a few years and anyone who relies on the promises of a politician for their security has never studied history. Politicians that can be replied on are few and far between. Honest people rarely run for political office- much less get elected in the climate of corruption that exists in political circles these days. Both parties have proven over and over again that they put their own interest over that of the citizens that vote for them.

On the macro scale Empires have risen and fallen. None offer any sort of permanence. In fact history shows over and over again that about the time the citizens begin to rely on their government to provide for their security, is about the time when an empire begins its steep decline.

Now, there is hope. I do mean to provide an uplifting message here, so let’s turn away from what does not work and look at where we can get results.

God is eternal. Spiritual Law is Universal and everlasting. If you are looking for economic predictability then we know there only one place where you can be assured of results. That is to invest in Spirit.

I can assure you that if you invest your security in Spirit, your security is promised. Anyone who has invested in the stock market has a strategy. Every one that got an education had a plan. Each person with a career followed some sort of path. The same is true for spiritual investment, you need an approach. Here is a proven and systematic approach that works and has always worked.

There are four straightforward steps to systematically transform your life approach away from the fantasy of material security.

First, become aware of all the lack thinking that you engage in. Notice when you think you do not have enough time to do that which is yours to do or enough money to enjoy the things that really matter to you. Become aware of when you feel harried and exhausted. Pay attention when you feel drained or depleted. It is essential to your connection to the inexhaustible source to eliminate the lack thinking that prevents you from finding the infinite flow of good in your life. If we focus on the world being a place of deprivation and impoverishment, for sure that is what we will experience. (I know I mentioned some of this above, this was to help folks see where they might be holding onto ideas that are not spiritually sound.)

In order to do this, it is very helpful to continually recall that we are children of the Divine. That which created us, created the entire universe. The universe is orderly and there are laws that govern its behavior. Likewise there are key Spiritual Truths that have been known to mystics and sages throughout recorded time. We know these Spiritual Principles as well. In times of transformation it is a good idea to be clear on what these laws are and which we believe and which we resist. So, take the time to organize what you actually think about prosperity and compare it to what you “know” about prosperity in terms of Truth Teachings. (We as a church are undergoing this process now as we get in touch with our core values surrounding prosperity.)

The third step is then to be open to new ideas. There are several components to this, and to change our thinking is to change our life. If we want transformation then we need to be willing to make some shifts in both our thinking and in our behavior. Sometimes we change a behavior to help our thinking get realigned with Truth. Other times we have to change our thinking and surrender our behavior, knowing that in the end our behavior will align with our most deeply held belief.

One of the essential keys here is to be open to Divine Ideas. These are the great Gifts that lead us to our good. There is an infinite supply of great ideas available to us. It is the purview of our ego to be right, look good and keep us safe. The ego likes to plan for our future and organize our life. On the other hand, our Higher Power is an infinitely better organizing intelligence which resides in us at all times. It can correlate things that our ego cannot even conceive of. Thus our path to prosperity is to be open to these Divine Ideas and not allow our egoic thinking- which is inherently short sighted – to run (or ruin) our life.

These Divine Ideas will run up against your thinking that says that you are not smart enough to successfully implement the Divine Idea. You will think that you do not have the experience, the resources, the intelligence, the time, and numerous other lack based excuses to manifest your Gift. Anytime that you make a decision to reject a Divine Idea based on the belief that you do not have enough money, then you are then investing in lack consciousness. Lack begets lack so please beware that you are investing in a fantasy when you operate from this perspective.

Here is another aspect of being open to new ideas. There is only one surefire and bankable way to know that you are opening yourself up to Divine Ideas and that is to tithe. When you tithe (which is to joyously give to those that spiritually nourish you with a sense of gratitude for the gifts you have been given) then you are demonstrating to your mind and to your ego that you do have enough. It is impossible to tithe from a place of sustained lack thinking. As you tithe, you will be reminding yourself each week to look for the Divine Ideas flowing your way. When they arrive you will be receptive because in your heart you know that tithing creates a flow. You give, but you cannot out give God. And thus, as you tithe, you must be willing to receive. The abundance that you receive tends to come in the form of Divine Ideas, authentic and supportive relationships and in opportunities to joyfully make difference in people’s lives. To the extent that you serve life, and joyously serve life, you will experience prosperity.

The fourth stage or step in this transformational dynamic is to courageously step out in those matters of finance which we feel called to undertake. It means we will spend our money consciously, in an organized fashion (rather than reactively or compulsively) to bring about a sense of good into our lives. It means that we will expand our horizons fearlessly as we find our right livelihood (that which brings us meaning while serving others). It means we will be supportive of the success of others knowing that their good does not take away from ours. A measure of discernment is helpful here, so this is where spiritual guidance or mentorship can leverage our good. Some so called Great Ideas are really a Brain Fart.

Thus, one new concept I had to learn early on my spiritual path was to tell the difference between a spiritual calling and ego driven behavior. Getting good guidance from those more fully attuned to the ways of Spirit was an extraordinary blessing to me in learning how to make this distinction.

So, here it is; the simple and straightforward path to freedom from economic insecurity. Simple is not always easy, and straightforward does not always mean that you can see the way, but I promise you that you will find a life of ease and grace as you master these principles.

The Tao of Divine Order

2009-02-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Tao of Divine Order

Change is one of the few constants in our physical world. As the Tao reminds us “the ten thousand things rise and fall without cease”. At the same time it says however that “Heaven and Earth last forever.”

How can this be?

Looking first at the natural world, moment by moment the waves ebb and flow, the breeze shifts, streams run, clouds float. Day becomes night, seasons come and seasons go and life goes on.

The circumstances are always unique, none lasting longer than a moment. Yet, the pattern is always perfectly predictable. While the waves ebb and flow, the ocean itself is permanent. While the sun is always moving across the sky (actually relative to the earth the sun is fairly constant- it is the earth that is rotating), we can predict exactly when the sun will rise. Spring will always follow winter and in the Northern Hemisphere spring days will generally warm and buds on trees will come out and the bulbs will become flowers and so forth and so on.

The same is true with technology and our personal world. First there were drums, bugles and banners, then smoke signals, then the break through of the telegraph and then upgrade to the universal home telephone and now personal cell phones. The only constant is that our technical world is always evolving.

In our private world as well, we are all the time, amidst change. Circumstances and conditions come and go surrounding jobs, health, friendships and a myriad of ten thousand other details. The only constant here is that we are eternal souls on an infinite journey of exploration.

In thinking about our prosperity consciousness from this perspective, we can see how we make the decisions that shape the details of our lives.

There are really only two ultimate world view choices. One can choose to live from a world view that rejects a higher power as an organizing and responsive force for our good. This world view is enmeshed in the details because there is nothing larger involved. Making choices based on circumstances is typically exhausting because we cannot adequately predict how the circumstances will alter and so we end up micromanaging our lives. We are living then in an unpredictable and/or chaotic world and from this mind set are typically thinking of self centered survival issues most of the time. The best we can do from this consciousness is to maximize our experience of our own preferences.

The other perspective available is a spiritual perspective that holds that while we are having an entirely human experience, we are actually spiritual beings and our lives are governed by spiritual laws. As we study and come to integrate our understanding of these universal principles then we can improve the quality of our life in generally predictable way. We may not be able to control all the short term circumstances, (other people do have free will after all) but we know that we are trudging a spiritual path that promises inner peace and a life of abundance.

There are examples of this phenomenon in quantum physics that seem very pertinent but I am not really able to explain it clearly. Scientists have run multiple repetitions of certain experiments to determine to a very fine accuracy which outcome of several possibilities is going to happen. They are able to predict how likely it is that each variable will occur, but they cannot know ahead of any specific test run which outcome is actually going to happen until it actually does happen. What I am describing here is not a chaotic environment, but one which is not certain.

Here is a example of a non chaotic but uncertain system from the natural world that I think I can use to illustrate this principle. Debbie and I just got back from Hawaii and we surfed for the first time. Surfers, whether in competition or for personal recreation are trying to catch a perfect wave. They know in any given day that there will be nearly an infinite number of waves. Some of these waves will be duds, some will be passable and a few will be nearly perfect.

The surfers know from common experience that ocean waves tend to come in sets, perhaps 3-8 waves in a series followed by a lull in the wave action and then the commencement of the next set. The surfers never know ahead of time if the next wave will be a dud or last wave of a set. They never know for sure until the wave begins to break if it will be a perfect wave. They are looking to pass on the duds, while seeking to catch a good wave before the onset of the next lull so they can surf and then paddle back out during the lull.

In spite of the appearance of a chaotic environment where no one can predict the quality of the next wave, many surfers will pass on wave after wave and then simultaneously a pair will jump up in unison to ride the next wave even though multiple riders on the same peak tends to diminish their own ride. How does this happen, that independent of each other several surfers will determine the next wave is the one to ride and not the one after that? They must develop some feel, some sixth sense that activates them to ride as the swell begins to form but before the wave actually breaks into a curl. They cannot know ahead of time so their environment is uncertain, but they know a good wave is going to come along sooner or later because every day there are literally hundreds of good waves.

This process of discerned thinking by surfers hopefully leads us to an understanding of the difference between a chaotic universe and one that is uncertain but predictable. As Einstein said, he believed that God did not play dice with the Universe. In other words, Einstein was convinced in his heart that the Universe was not random or chaotic, and he spent the entire balance of his life trying to find scientific proof of this conviction.

This perspective deeply impacts our prosperity thinking in how we deal with the changes in our life. If we assume the Universe is chaotic and random then we will have a gut reaction to each perceived threat. The gut reaction is activated in the lower chakras where the survival and power instincts are located. Gut reactions are often urgent and very strong adrenalin driven currents and tend to be, as their namesake indicates, reactive. They are noted for self centered and protective behavior. Protective behavior can be defensive or aggressive, is often focused on shifting blame and it is typically competitive or even hostile.

On the other hand, if our deepest belief is that the world is unfolding in response to our intentions in a rational but uncertain manner, then we can take the time to rely on our intuition to guide our decisions. Intuition arises within the higher chakras. These intuitive senses are integrated for the well-being of all concern. They tend to be gentle signals or subtle hints that take time to fully take shape and are most often expansive or generative in character.

Reactive energy and decisions made from a world view of chaos are less likely to lead to a sense of our goodness. It is focused on self centered survival- which is unlikely to help us thrive unless we are truly in a dire situation. On the other hand, a world view which encompasses a Higher Power and Divine Order lead to intuitive decision making and a calmer life. These decisions will be expansive rather than protective and will thus more likely to lead us towards prosperity and abundance. In the end, it is our choice of which world view to adopt, chaos or Divine Order.

Chaos Uncertinity and Divine Order

2009-02-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

Chaos, Uncertainty and Divine Order

The science of economics indicates that people tend to be mostly rational about their choices around prosperity. In times of falling home prices, people wait to purchase a home to see if they can get a better deal, in times of raising gas prices, people tend to drive less. If Roma tomatoes are on sale this week, we might buy Roma tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes. Each month we make millions of economic decisions that are based on the data uppermost in our mind

Coupled with these basically rational choices are a number of unstated assumptions which may or may not be useful. I like a certain brand of Blue Cheese dressing and do not like other brands of Blue Cheese dressing. (In fact I do not like any other type of dressing on my salad either). When the brand I like is on sale, I will buy two or three jars even if I only need one jar now. When it is not on sale, I will just buy one jar. My basic assumption is that the dressing will not be on sale every week, but it will be on sale sometime soon. Moreover, my basic assumption is that the store will be open each week.

These basic assumptions are woven into our thinking at such a deep level that we are not often aware of them and rarely examine them. They exist surrounding every area of our lives and become ingrained into our thinking. For example, when I lived in California there were many sunny days and so oftentimes I would think of taking a walk but wait till later in the afternoon because I had a few others things to do. This basic assumption collided with reality when I moved to Oregon where there is an occasional glimmer of sun for a short while but rarely an entire day that is sunny. I had to re evaluate my basic assumption about walks to adapt to Oregon weather patterns and now take my walk the moment I see the sunshine.

Our unconscious basic assumptions impact our ability to relate to a Higher Power in a profound way and are often determinative of our ability to thrive and prosper. If we have unconsciously embedded ideas from our childhood world view then our otherwise rational decision making process is entirely skewed.

One area for potent inquiry is the relationship of Divine Order to our experience of chaos and uncertainty. If we had a chaotic childhood with lots of seemingly irrational events occurring all the time, then examining our thinking about the role of a Higher Power in our prosperity consciousness my lead to a sense of well-being that would otherwise be missing.

Each personal spiritual journey is unique and so reactions to similar conditions might lead to very different basic assumptions so it is unwise to generalize too much. Prolonged exposure to chaos as a youngster might lead one child to an overly developed desire to control their world as an adult. It may be just as likely though that a child growing up a chaotic environment might adopt a chaotic lifestyle. It is vital not to judge the prior assumptions as bad or unhealthy. This just brings about more shame. Instead, the initial transformational opportunity here to use our free will and discernment to determine in a compassionate way the embedded assumptions which define the core of our thinking and gently see if these concepts support us to thrive now.

As noted in a prior chapter, I believe that the world is ordered and responsive. That means that there is a rational and soothing process by which I can interact with this Higher Intelligence to co create a better life. This Higher Intelligence is a benefactor to me and all humanity. There are, of course, times in my life when I am faced with uncertainty. So long as I can be present to the uncertainty with this underlying theology of Divine Order, I am usually able to remain calmly open. I trust that my good is inherently operational in every situation. I know that no matter how it looks in the moment that my experience is not chaotic and unpredictable. Instead, my world is responding to my most profound prayers and unfolding for my ultimate good.

It seems to me that some people say they believe in a Higher Power as a nurturing organizing force for good but on a deeper unconscious level hold the idea that the world is chaotic and unpredictable. Since all our actions are typically influenced from our most deeply held belief, people with this mind set will react to a change in circumstances from a world view of chaos and unpredictability no matter what they may say they believe about God. This means they are less likely to remain in open surrender to the changes and instead will react from their habitual resistance to chaos or unpredictability. They may become protective, defensive or combative.

In terms of pure prosperity consciousness, folks with this way of thinking then unconsciously resist the unfolding of their own good by reacting irrationally when things begin to feel out of our control. Change is happening all the time, but when our consciousness remains fixed, then the details of our life shift but our basic state remains the same. We get evicted from one relationship and fall into an equally dysfunctional one. We loose one job and find another that is just as unsatisfying. We clear up one health challenge and find other symptoms right around the corner. Pretty soon we begin to feel there are no good romantic partners out there. We sense that we are jinxed in our career. Our friends call us hypochondriacs.

Transformation arises when we are able to remain calmly aware of our deepest mind set in the middle of massive change. When we hold as the core truth of our existence a world view that there is a benevolent presence within us guiding and supporting our good, then we experience the uncertainty as an opening to a new way of living rather than something to be feared or managed.