Born into this life with no filter between ourselves, and the world around us; as we grow, our experiences form attitudes that become the lens through which we view reality. No matter how objective we believe ourselves to be, our perception of the world is colored by the attitudes formed by our life experiences. We observe life through the lens we metaphorically refer to as our heart, and we express ourselves accordingly. Reason is a process by which we evaluate what we have observed through the lens of our attitudes. Consequently, our mind can reason only that which the heart has prepared it for. Few among us desire to change the world, and fewer yet believe they can do so. However, for those who have the vision, courage, patience, and persistence, they can change the world, one heart at a time.
If we wish to change situations it would be well to first consider the possibility that changing people is a more permanent, realistic, and wholesome solution. However, we cannot change minds until we first change hearts, and herein lies our greatest challenge. Reason rises from motivation, which is an extension of our attitudes. Thus we cannot change the fruit without first changing the tree from which it grows. There are times where reason will awaken motives but rarely will change become permanent unless we allow our experiences to transform us. The mind may be willing but eventually the heart will lead it to wherever it wishes to go. For those among us with uncommon courage, who wish to change the world around us, we may find it necessary to begin by changing the hearts of our brothers and sisters. In our effort to change those around us, it is an act of selfishness to require others to respond to life the same way as we do. Instead we should aim for them to be the best individual they can be so their uniqueness is imprinted upon their activities. If this is our goal, we should consider awakening the best within others by showing them the best within us. To change another person we should be willing to be the example long enough to awaken the best within them. Because meaningful change requires experience, it can take a long period of time, even a lifetime. Are we willing to pay such a price?
Change comes over time so the example set must endure for as long as it is required for change to take hold. If we wish to change others by example we are unlikely to receive any positive reinforcement from them. Here is where some of the most highly motivated of us fail in our pursuit. We look for assurance from those hearts we seek to change, and this is unlikely to happen. We may find it helpful to consider that it is from our own hearts, and from nowhere else where we should seek that strength necessary for our long term effort to change lives. In the end, if we changed just one individual we have justified our effort, for the transformation of an entire society begins with the change of one individual.
If we truly seek to change the world around us we should weigh the benefit against the long term cost. Our degree of success will ultimately lie in how much of ourselves we are willing to give to this undertaking. Are we willing to labor for the rest of our lives to change the heart of just one individual? Do we have sufficient faith in goodness, in their goodness that once it is awakened in them, they will have begun the change? To change a mind is not much of a wonder but to change a heart is pure magic. In a life nobly lived, we may find that the greatest miracle we can perform is to make a miracle of someone else.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Reason For The Season
The imaginative forces are real and ever present. They are the pathways upon which spirit travels into the mind of a living human being. That mind is divided into two distinct halves, the emotional and the rational. Neither aspect of mind is superior to the other but for a productive life; both must work in concert with each other. We are motivated by spirit and all things spiritual; however, to apply these truths in a material environment we need to do so through rational thought. We create difficulties for ourselves when we give preference to the emotional over reason or vice versa. It is important to understand emotions are more, far more than how we feel about anything, and reason is much greater than just intellect.
There are those among us that have made it their mission to focus on the emotional while others of us are in the world to focus more deeply upon intellect. This does not excuse us from leading a balanced life it just means there must continuously be extra effort expended to do so. Where intellect is heightened, it requires much more effort to allow our emotions to rise to the same level, the same holds true to allow our intellect to rise to the level of heightened emotions. Thus the struggle begins, like the pendulum of a click, swinging back and forth, swaying no further on one direction than it can move in the opposite. At the extremes, emotion in the absence of intellect is blindness, while intellect in the absence of emotion is often cruel.
We are in the earth, spiritual, mental and physical. If we were to be simply spiritual or even mental, we would not find ourselves in flesh and bone. All that we are is spiritual, all that we have experienced is mental and both are condensed, compressed into material expression. Our physical lives are spent giving form to our mental or motivative forces. Great care must be exercised that each, the motivation and application, share the same level of importance in our lives. Although we have discussed it often, both here and elsewhere, quantity is not a factor but often an inhibitor. The quality of our lives is the only measure of growth and quantity is simply a result. Life is experienced in the living thereof and never in the result. Quantity is a result and should never be a motivating factor. When we rush, when we hurry we have given precedence to the result over the activity itself. As a consequence we have forsaken the motivation for the act to artificially manipulate the result. This does not diminish the importance of goals but they should be arrived at solely as a result of dedicated application.
As the season of the Christ-mass approaches life is quickened by the spirit of gentle loving kindness. We can feel it everywhere, and we are drawn to it by sympathy or repelled by antipathy. It is up to each of us how we will express the motivative pulls of the season but it was never meant for the emotions, no matter how strong, to rule our intellect or vice versa. We have the spirit, the Spirit of the Christ, our mind, all that we have ever experienced, and an opportunity to express this today. It is our choice how we will do so, that mind and matter may rise to the level of spirit, not for any to replace the other, but for each to express the other in their order.
There are those among us that have made it their mission to focus on the emotional while others of us are in the world to focus more deeply upon intellect. This does not excuse us from leading a balanced life it just means there must continuously be extra effort expended to do so. Where intellect is heightened, it requires much more effort to allow our emotions to rise to the same level, the same holds true to allow our intellect to rise to the level of heightened emotions. Thus the struggle begins, like the pendulum of a click, swinging back and forth, swaying no further on one direction than it can move in the opposite. At the extremes, emotion in the absence of intellect is blindness, while intellect in the absence of emotion is often cruel.
We are in the earth, spiritual, mental and physical. If we were to be simply spiritual or even mental, we would not find ourselves in flesh and bone. All that we are is spiritual, all that we have experienced is mental and both are condensed, compressed into material expression. Our physical lives are spent giving form to our mental or motivative forces. Great care must be exercised that each, the motivation and application, share the same level of importance in our lives. Although we have discussed it often, both here and elsewhere, quantity is not a factor but often an inhibitor. The quality of our lives is the only measure of growth and quantity is simply a result. Life is experienced in the living thereof and never in the result. Quantity is a result and should never be a motivating factor. When we rush, when we hurry we have given precedence to the result over the activity itself. As a consequence we have forsaken the motivation for the act to artificially manipulate the result. This does not diminish the importance of goals but they should be arrived at solely as a result of dedicated application.
As the season of the Christ-mass approaches life is quickened by the spirit of gentle loving kindness. We can feel it everywhere, and we are drawn to it by sympathy or repelled by antipathy. It is up to each of us how we will express the motivative pulls of the season but it was never meant for the emotions, no matter how strong, to rule our intellect or vice versa. We have the spirit, the Spirit of the Christ, our mind, all that we have ever experienced, and an opportunity to express this today. It is our choice how we will do so, that mind and matter may rise to the level of spirit, not for any to replace the other, but for each to express the other in their order.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Nobility Of Courage
Within all virtues is that which compels their expression. As a result, intrinsic good, if not expressed, will decay becoming toxic to the physical and mental bodies. It is curious how something so good can become poisonous until we consider virtues are living forms, and like all life, they grow or die. That energy from which virtues draw their life reaches relentlessly outward seeing expression in our lives. If expression is withheld, the virtue dies of malnutrition, leaving a noxious waste in its place. Compassion, kindness, patience, mercy, generosity, courage, and other expressions of love are nothing until given form through expression.
Let us consider courage. Courage is an expression of faith, while cowardice is an expression of fear. Unless faith is exercised through acts of courage, in the absence of such expression, fear will naturally enter in. Courage is its own reward. A life of courage will result in ultimate victory; however, a life so lived will be generously punctuated with disappointments. In the presence of courage there is no failure and disappointments will naturally arise when the desired results are not achieved. This is not a failure because it is a bold step in mastering the use of faith to shape our goals. It is important to the seeker to understand that the virtue of faith is victorious in courage, and the desired goals are the result of trial and error in a material life.
Where the outcome of our actions is uncertain, the courage to persist is filled with majesty. To dare to succeed is only courageous when the result is not assured. This is true success that cannot be measured by how close we come to achieving our goals. Of one thing we can be certain, faith which should be expressed by us all, must be clothed in courage. Does the possibility of making our dreams come true increase in the absence of courage? Are we more likely to live virtuously in the presence of fear? Are the desires of our heart more achievable where we do not dare? Courage does not guarantee our goals will be achieved but it does make possible a life nobly lived.
Our God, who breathed life into each of us, does not know the outcome of how we will live our lives. However, His faith in us is perfect and beyond anything we can imagine. Let us each boldly seize upon the faith of our Lord and dare to act upon it. May our courage demonstrate to ourselves and those around us that faith is made perfect only through acts. And, finally, dear blessed ones, may we dare to dare.
Let us consider courage. Courage is an expression of faith, while cowardice is an expression of fear. Unless faith is exercised through acts of courage, in the absence of such expression, fear will naturally enter in. Courage is its own reward. A life of courage will result in ultimate victory; however, a life so lived will be generously punctuated with disappointments. In the presence of courage there is no failure and disappointments will naturally arise when the desired results are not achieved. This is not a failure because it is a bold step in mastering the use of faith to shape our goals. It is important to the seeker to understand that the virtue of faith is victorious in courage, and the desired goals are the result of trial and error in a material life.
Where the outcome of our actions is uncertain, the courage to persist is filled with majesty. To dare to succeed is only courageous when the result is not assured. This is true success that cannot be measured by how close we come to achieving our goals. Of one thing we can be certain, faith which should be expressed by us all, must be clothed in courage. Does the possibility of making our dreams come true increase in the absence of courage? Are we more likely to live virtuously in the presence of fear? Are the desires of our heart more achievable where we do not dare? Courage does not guarantee our goals will be achieved but it does make possible a life nobly lived.
Our God, who breathed life into each of us, does not know the outcome of how we will live our lives. However, His faith in us is perfect and beyond anything we can imagine. Let us each boldly seize upon the faith of our Lord and dare to act upon it. May our courage demonstrate to ourselves and those around us that faith is made perfect only through acts. And, finally, dear blessed ones, may we dare to dare.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Being Right Is Highly Overrated
There is that in life which makes it an exhilarating adventure and that which makes it an ordeal to be borne. Our behavior is guided by patterns. These patterns are spiritual, and they permeate all mental activity. Consequently, mental patterns find a home in our physical activities or what we call our behavior. We can choose to call these patterns whatever we wish, but they are still the blueprint for the orderly manifestation of life in all forms. Some among us have called these patterns archetypes, some higher life forms, and some call them God’s will. Never the less, they are the avenues through which creation replicates itself in every possible form.
In our daily lives we replicate ourselves in a variety of ways. Everything we are, everything we have been is expressed in whatever we do. No other living being has shared all of our experiences, therefore, in all creation; we are one of a kind. We are unique and what we set our hand to is likewise an expression of originality. Although guiding principles are set as patterns, the result of our activities is us. There is no right way to be us, nor is there a wrong way; there is just an original way. To judge the results of our originality against the results of another’s, and conclude one is right and the other wrong, is a painful stretch of reason.
There are those activities that conform to the pattern woven within spirit and there are those that are opposed to it. This difference does not make one right and the other wrong. It makes the former a helpful way to behave and the latter unhelpful. When driving a car trough a city we may find some roads closed. If we are courageous we will go around the blockages and navigate our way through. Some of us may charge down the closed road, and when we find it too much in disrepair to traverse we may eventually change our direction to find a more helpful route. This does not mean our path is the same as anyone else, it means simply that we each must find our own way to continue our voyage. We are children of eternity, completely original, our adventure is endless, and we are not wrong when we by our choices do not find a helpful course on the first try. If we are fixed upon our adventure, it is the journey that counts and not its speedy conclusion. There is nowhere else to go than where we are. There is no one else to be but who we are, and there is other time allotted to us than now.
The terms right and wrong are largely subjective. We view the world around us from an original perspective and because others do not share our view does not make them either right or wrong. Of course there are better, more productive choices that can be made by all of us, but that does not make us right or wrong. We use right and wrong as absolutes and they are not meant to be. Only God is absolute, and everything else is transient; in the process of perfecting. When we use the terms right or wrong we lend a tone of absoluteness to them.
What is helpful to each of us is not necessarily beneficial to the rest of us. We can accurately use the terms right and wrong where it applies to us individually. However, we are not the archetype, we are not the gold standard, and we cannot measure the originality of others by our own. When, in a wholly original fashion we express ourselves according to God’s will, we are right and when others do the same so are they. But only we know when we are in conflict with the pattern within each of us, when our means are out of sync with our motives, and we cannot conclude this for anyone else.
If on this voyage through eternity we chose to climb the mountains, sail the seas or soar above the clouds, it is the experience that counts. Whether we travel in a straight line, a circular motion, or any other way, again, it is the experience and not the conclusion of the journey that is meaningful.
Life is an adventure to be lived and not a problem to be solved. It is lived in the living, and is the result of what we have made of our originality. Being right is highly overrated and it is not a spiritual value. Instead of our dwelling upon who is right, or who is wrong, let us consider that simple kindness, one to another, is our highest calling.
In our daily lives we replicate ourselves in a variety of ways. Everything we are, everything we have been is expressed in whatever we do. No other living being has shared all of our experiences, therefore, in all creation; we are one of a kind. We are unique and what we set our hand to is likewise an expression of originality. Although guiding principles are set as patterns, the result of our activities is us. There is no right way to be us, nor is there a wrong way; there is just an original way. To judge the results of our originality against the results of another’s, and conclude one is right and the other wrong, is a painful stretch of reason.
There are those activities that conform to the pattern woven within spirit and there are those that are opposed to it. This difference does not make one right and the other wrong. It makes the former a helpful way to behave and the latter unhelpful. When driving a car trough a city we may find some roads closed. If we are courageous we will go around the blockages and navigate our way through. Some of us may charge down the closed road, and when we find it too much in disrepair to traverse we may eventually change our direction to find a more helpful route. This does not mean our path is the same as anyone else, it means simply that we each must find our own way to continue our voyage. We are children of eternity, completely original, our adventure is endless, and we are not wrong when we by our choices do not find a helpful course on the first try. If we are fixed upon our adventure, it is the journey that counts and not its speedy conclusion. There is nowhere else to go than where we are. There is no one else to be but who we are, and there is other time allotted to us than now.
The terms right and wrong are largely subjective. We view the world around us from an original perspective and because others do not share our view does not make them either right or wrong. Of course there are better, more productive choices that can be made by all of us, but that does not make us right or wrong. We use right and wrong as absolutes and they are not meant to be. Only God is absolute, and everything else is transient; in the process of perfecting. When we use the terms right or wrong we lend a tone of absoluteness to them.
What is helpful to each of us is not necessarily beneficial to the rest of us. We can accurately use the terms right and wrong where it applies to us individually. However, we are not the archetype, we are not the gold standard, and we cannot measure the originality of others by our own. When, in a wholly original fashion we express ourselves according to God’s will, we are right and when others do the same so are they. But only we know when we are in conflict with the pattern within each of us, when our means are out of sync with our motives, and we cannot conclude this for anyone else.
If on this voyage through eternity we chose to climb the mountains, sail the seas or soar above the clouds, it is the experience that counts. Whether we travel in a straight line, a circular motion, or any other way, again, it is the experience and not the conclusion of the journey that is meaningful.
Life is an adventure to be lived and not a problem to be solved. It is lived in the living, and is the result of what we have made of our originality. Being right is highly overrated and it is not a spiritual value. Instead of our dwelling upon who is right, or who is wrong, let us consider that simple kindness, one to another, is our highest calling.
Monday, September 7, 2009
What shall we do with God?
What shall we do with God this day? Our God is the first cause of all life. Beside God there is nothing, and all creation is an expression; one or another form of our God. The entirety of creation resides within God because there simply is no outside. Without beginning or end, without limits of any kind, God is infinite; therefore all things created are infinite as well. We perceive a beginning and even an ending because form changes, but this is due largely to our reasoning with a finite mind bound up in time and space. Creation is an endless process taking place within the mind of God. Metaphorically speaking, we can say our precious Lord thinks, His thoughts take form, and in this way creation has taken place.
Thoughts are things, they are not transient. They live on in the mental realms with a life of their own long after they have been released. Thoughts are given form by either the imaginative or cognitive forces. Although thoughts are not permanent, they are long lasting far beyond anything we can imagine. Thoughts acted upon are solidified or reinforced in the mental realms, and are far more enduring than those which were just passing occurrences. Most human thought, however, has form for what we could term, by material standards, thousands of years. When we cease to act upon our own thought forms they are eventually transmuted and returned to the undifferentiated energy in the mental realms from which they were formed. However, a permanent record is left of their having been. When we were yet less fixed in matter, and had more control over forming energies, our thoughts took on a creative and independent life. Here, our thoughts have become what we could consider actual beings in the mental realms, some of which exist to this very day. These beings are not ensouled but they are instead extensions of our imaginative forces. These living thought forms have relationships that interact with creation apart from our material awareness. However, our thought creations have no sentience, nor do they posses what we call free will. These thought forms know themselves only to be us, acting and reacting according to the will patterns we possessed before releasing them. In fact they are us and we will someday become aware we share a single overarching consciousness with them. In this way we become simultaneously present in a multiplicity of forms.
Let us take this line of reasoning to the next stage that most of us may not have previously considered. As we thought these forms into existence, following the pattern implanted into them prior to their release, they in turn think forms into existence. It is our thought actually having its own thought. By this process, thought form procreation or replication takes place in the mental realms.
This pattern is similar to how our precious Lord, the creator of all that is, so populates reality as we know it. Each and every creation is a thought or a thought of a living thought of our infinite loving Father. Our language, and in fact materiality, cannot conceive of the magnitude of creation for it is infinite in size and scope. However the incomprehensible variety of beings proceeding from the seat of Tender Loving Kindness, each having a life and destiny of its own, reside within the overarching consciousness of our God.
In our youth it was simple to externalize our Lord and think of creation being just God and us. Subsequently, as we factored in other beings, it was God and many of us, with nothing between the creator and His created. To visualize this we conceived of God above all creation and only one level beneath Him where all beings stretched out in linear fashion. As we grew in understanding we may have imagined several levels of creation beneath our Lord. This is quite simple an image but it then requires our externalizing God and creating an “outside” that is not God. We could then imagine all sorts of ungodliness existing outside of God. However, creation is much more wholesome and complex than these early images. As previously noted, creation exists within God. Our blessed Lord is creative through His creations. We may think of this as God being somewhat removed from subsequent creation, owing to our Lord’s omnipresence in all things, He is no less conscious of, and shares an intimate relationship with all creation. The vastness of creation does not in the least hamper our Lord’s intimate connection with all life.
In a time and space perspective we have grown accustomed using distance as a judgment value. We often assume that which is closer to its source is more original, more powerful and more important. Whereas creations are more or less primal they are neither closer nor further from Love and Life. All of creation shares the same connection with our God, thus none is closer or further from its original source. As a result, the spiritual and mental realms are populated with countless hierarchies through whom our Lord is expressed in an endless variety of ways. With this pattern of creative self replication implanted in all beings, the originality and variety of God’s creatures increase immeasurably.
Our relationship with creation is a benevolent one. For when we remove the limits of time and space or sequence and distance, all of us are living thoughts in the mind of God. We are enhanced and not diminished by the enormity of creation. On one level, the diversity of all consciousness permeates us, influencing all that we are. How we treat reality, wherever we encounter it, is a direct reflection of how we treat our precious Lord. Every experience, every encounter, is an opportunity to deal with a wholly original expression of our God. Our encounters like our experiences have not always been to our liking but they are no less part of God simply because they cause us irritation. It would be well upon arising each day to ask ourselves, “What will we do with our God this day?” Then, when the answer comes, which it surely will, to use it to remind ourselves throughout our mundane affairs, this is our opportunity to express our divine nature. In the final analysis, we are living thoughts of a Living God with a life and destiny of our own.
Thoughts are things, they are not transient. They live on in the mental realms with a life of their own long after they have been released. Thoughts are given form by either the imaginative or cognitive forces. Although thoughts are not permanent, they are long lasting far beyond anything we can imagine. Thoughts acted upon are solidified or reinforced in the mental realms, and are far more enduring than those which were just passing occurrences. Most human thought, however, has form for what we could term, by material standards, thousands of years. When we cease to act upon our own thought forms they are eventually transmuted and returned to the undifferentiated energy in the mental realms from which they were formed. However, a permanent record is left of their having been. When we were yet less fixed in matter, and had more control over forming energies, our thoughts took on a creative and independent life. Here, our thoughts have become what we could consider actual beings in the mental realms, some of which exist to this very day. These beings are not ensouled but they are instead extensions of our imaginative forces. These living thought forms have relationships that interact with creation apart from our material awareness. However, our thought creations have no sentience, nor do they posses what we call free will. These thought forms know themselves only to be us, acting and reacting according to the will patterns we possessed before releasing them. In fact they are us and we will someday become aware we share a single overarching consciousness with them. In this way we become simultaneously present in a multiplicity of forms.
Let us take this line of reasoning to the next stage that most of us may not have previously considered. As we thought these forms into existence, following the pattern implanted into them prior to their release, they in turn think forms into existence. It is our thought actually having its own thought. By this process, thought form procreation or replication takes place in the mental realms.
This pattern is similar to how our precious Lord, the creator of all that is, so populates reality as we know it. Each and every creation is a thought or a thought of a living thought of our infinite loving Father. Our language, and in fact materiality, cannot conceive of the magnitude of creation for it is infinite in size and scope. However the incomprehensible variety of beings proceeding from the seat of Tender Loving Kindness, each having a life and destiny of its own, reside within the overarching consciousness of our God.
In our youth it was simple to externalize our Lord and think of creation being just God and us. Subsequently, as we factored in other beings, it was God and many of us, with nothing between the creator and His created. To visualize this we conceived of God above all creation and only one level beneath Him where all beings stretched out in linear fashion. As we grew in understanding we may have imagined several levels of creation beneath our Lord. This is quite simple an image but it then requires our externalizing God and creating an “outside” that is not God. We could then imagine all sorts of ungodliness existing outside of God. However, creation is much more wholesome and complex than these early images. As previously noted, creation exists within God. Our blessed Lord is creative through His creations. We may think of this as God being somewhat removed from subsequent creation, owing to our Lord’s omnipresence in all things, He is no less conscious of, and shares an intimate relationship with all creation. The vastness of creation does not in the least hamper our Lord’s intimate connection with all life.
In a time and space perspective we have grown accustomed using distance as a judgment value. We often assume that which is closer to its source is more original, more powerful and more important. Whereas creations are more or less primal they are neither closer nor further from Love and Life. All of creation shares the same connection with our God, thus none is closer or further from its original source. As a result, the spiritual and mental realms are populated with countless hierarchies through whom our Lord is expressed in an endless variety of ways. With this pattern of creative self replication implanted in all beings, the originality and variety of God’s creatures increase immeasurably.
Our relationship with creation is a benevolent one. For when we remove the limits of time and space or sequence and distance, all of us are living thoughts in the mind of God. We are enhanced and not diminished by the enormity of creation. On one level, the diversity of all consciousness permeates us, influencing all that we are. How we treat reality, wherever we encounter it, is a direct reflection of how we treat our precious Lord. Every experience, every encounter, is an opportunity to deal with a wholly original expression of our God. Our encounters like our experiences have not always been to our liking but they are no less part of God simply because they cause us irritation. It would be well upon arising each day to ask ourselves, “What will we do with our God this day?” Then, when the answer comes, which it surely will, to use it to remind ourselves throughout our mundane affairs, this is our opportunity to express our divine nature. In the final analysis, we are living thoughts of a Living God with a life and destiny of our own.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
August 2009
Some of us describe ourselves as goal oriented while others do not. Many among us are fulfilled by simply living from day to day, making the most of each opportunity without spreading our attention thinly across time. Many of us see our goals as attainable and strive to reach them. Others of us set our goals so high that they become directions in which to live our lives. No matter how we describe ourselves, we all aspire and hope to realize our objectives. The amount of energy we put into realizing our goals is described as ambition. Consequently, we each possess varying amounts of ambition. In short we are driven by ambitions toward our goals.
If our goals are set low enough we can spend relatively little energy to reach them. If we set our goals high enough a much greater amount of ambition will be necessary to attain them. Finally, if we set our goals so high as to become our direction in life, we will need the greatest amount of ambition possible. Here, in the heat of ambition we often lose our way. When our ambition makes the attainment our goal more important than the experience itself we have gone astray. Life is lived in the process and the result is only the accumulated experiences.
To the soul in the earth there is only one goal and it is to perfect our consciousness. To, through experience, know ourselves to be divine, in the image and likeness of our God. It is only through each experience we grow in consciousness and perfect ourselves. So it could be said that our goal is to become perfect. That is certainly a lofty goal and one, if it were true would point us God ward. But that is not our goal; our aim is far simpler and more immediate than becoming perfect. It is to be perfect. We should not think these two are the same thing because they are vastly different. What we are is not the same as what we aspire to be. And what we must be, not simply become, is perfect. It is only in our perfection of each moment will our day become perfect.
God has given us each moment to perfect. If we make the small seemingly unimportant things perfect, they are no longer small and unimportant. The moments of life are only as trivial as we allow them to be. The mundane is simply life waiting to be awakened into majesty by an aspiring soul. This is only possible when we perfect each moment and let the day take care of itself. This is not to encourage us to abandon our goals, to lower our ambitions, but no future is worth more than the present. We cannot become something we are not willing to be from the start.
Dear precious children of holiness, let us pour out our hearts and our minds into the perfecting of each moment. The day will not be won by the swift but by the willing. Be bold, be brave, you cannot err, for in this grand experience we call life the game is rigged and the outcome assured.
May God bless you without end so the light of your perfection may illuminate the world around you.
If our goals are set low enough we can spend relatively little energy to reach them. If we set our goals high enough a much greater amount of ambition will be necessary to attain them. Finally, if we set our goals so high as to become our direction in life, we will need the greatest amount of ambition possible. Here, in the heat of ambition we often lose our way. When our ambition makes the attainment our goal more important than the experience itself we have gone astray. Life is lived in the process and the result is only the accumulated experiences.
To the soul in the earth there is only one goal and it is to perfect our consciousness. To, through experience, know ourselves to be divine, in the image and likeness of our God. It is only through each experience we grow in consciousness and perfect ourselves. So it could be said that our goal is to become perfect. That is certainly a lofty goal and one, if it were true would point us God ward. But that is not our goal; our aim is far simpler and more immediate than becoming perfect. It is to be perfect. We should not think these two are the same thing because they are vastly different. What we are is not the same as what we aspire to be. And what we must be, not simply become, is perfect. It is only in our perfection of each moment will our day become perfect.
God has given us each moment to perfect. If we make the small seemingly unimportant things perfect, they are no longer small and unimportant. The moments of life are only as trivial as we allow them to be. The mundane is simply life waiting to be awakened into majesty by an aspiring soul. This is only possible when we perfect each moment and let the day take care of itself. This is not to encourage us to abandon our goals, to lower our ambitions, but no future is worth more than the present. We cannot become something we are not willing to be from the start.
Dear precious children of holiness, let us pour out our hearts and our minds into the perfecting of each moment. The day will not be won by the swift but by the willing. Be bold, be brave, you cannot err, for in this grand experience we call life the game is rigged and the outcome assured.
May God bless you without end so the light of your perfection may illuminate the world around you.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Excerpted from Voyage Through Eternity
Early man was an interesting combination of extremes. So connected to the intuitive was mankind that neither language nor memory was necessary. Intuition was so keen that there was nothing that needed to be remembered nor communicated. As a result, we appeared to be a savage, and, by our current standards, we were. From a higher perspective, we had a stronger connection to the spiritual forces than we do now, but a limited ability to express those spiritual forces in our daily affairs. So exhilarated was our soul that we lived entirely for conquest of the material forces before us. We became competitive with the elements of earth and its inhabitants, being stimulated to rise higher and higher in our conquest. Think not that we hunted flesh just to eat, when vegetable life was in abundance and did not threaten to consume us first. Animal life was much better equipped at the time to rule matter, to consume us, and this challenge stimulated us greatly. We consumed that which would feast upon us, and, in the process, we continued to subdue the earth. We did not conquer the material forces because we needed to, but because we were compelled to. This compulsion was what motivated our early struggle in matter and assured our victory. It is easy to think we overcame adversity to survive and prosper, but, in fact, we survived and prospered because we were driven to do so.
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