CHANGE FROM A SPIRITUAL VIEWPOINT

There's a principle that exists and seems to be true that life is a mirror of what you project. If this is true then every time you change the way you view life, that new view of reality is reflected back to you. How quickly this change will manifest can vary.

Just like a magnet through our beliefs or whatever our "truth" is at the moment we seem to attract into our lives our most cherished dreams as well as our most horrible nightmares. The more conscious we become of what it is we are thinking and believing we can then see if what is happening in our lives is reflecting that belief. If we note that there does seem to be some correlation, then perhaps if we can change or shift our beliefs, we can draw into our lives a little more of the dream and a little less of the nightmare.

Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see." I think he had something there. :)
If you can change your point of view or even your point of reference, the reflection you get back will change.

The world IS a reflection of me.

We have to stop viewing the problems as problems and start seeing the solutions. We have to visualize them as we want them to manifest (leaving the details of how this is to come about to the Universe, to God, to the All That Is) and not focus on how things appear right now. We have to believe it is possible and feel how wonderful that will be when it happens. This doesn't mean we manipulate others and change others. It is only our perceptions and beliefs that we work on. As more and more people change polarization from the negative to the positive, from the nightmare to the dream, there is a huge shift in the consciousness of the planet.

Sometimes what changes is our unhappiness with what is even when things continue to be as they are. If we release no one but ourselves from the misery, that has got to be a step in the right direction. What we have done when we change our perception is that we have released another piece of what is holding things as they are and give those things more wiggle room to also change. This is especially true in personal relationships. When we change our negative perception of another person we free them up for change instead of continually seeing them in a way that keeps them locked into their present condition. But again, even if they don’t improve or seem happier or better off, our more loving, positive viewpoint of them will set us free from the suffering we have caused ourselves over their condition.

"Be the change you want to see."
"When you believe it, you will see it." Wayne Dyer

Counting your blessings is a form of changing your perspective. When you count your blessings you are focusing on what it is you DO have as opposed to focusing on your lack. The more you see yourself blessed the more blessed you will experience blessings. The more unfortunate you see yourself to be, the more unfortunate you will be. The more you love, the more love you will experience. The more you hate or are violent or negative or unloving, the more of this you will experience.

If you march AGAINST war you are focused on war and magnetize more of the same. If you march FOR peace, that subtle shift in your consciousness will do more to manifest peace in your life and in the world than it will to rid either you or the world of the misery or effects of war.

So, if at some point in your life you find yourself wanting to experience more love in your life, for example, you can focus on having that rather than lacking it. You will find yourself learning to tap the love within you and then giving it away and the more you find it and give it, the more you will have. For this gesture will be a step on faith that you have all the love you ever wanted, so much so that you have a never-ending supply to give, to share with others and still have more for yourself. Perhaps you will even find yourself being love personified rather than being engaged in the activity of giving and receiving it.

"...but the greatest of these is love."

I keep thinking about that. The GREATEST it says. The rest goes on to say that it doesn't matter what you can do or accomplish - how rich, educated, powerful, attractive, strong - whatever gifts you may have or the attributes you may assign yourself or others assign you - the greatest is love.

It isn't a feeling and it isn't a doing. It is a being. Along with the being may come a doing or a feeling or both but they are just evidence of the presence of love just like leaves rustling in the wind. You can't see the wind but the leaves show the wind's presence.

In between words, in between the tension of yin and yang, and all appearing opposites, one can find the Absolute, the Pure, the Essence. But without the appearing opposites, without the tension, without the contrast there would be neither life nor an ability to know the Absolute, the Pure, the Essence.

This Absolute, Pure, Essence contains the all but the all cannot contain It. All that is, is It but it is It only as a droplet is part of the ocean. The ocean is all of the droplets and contains all of the droplets. While the droplets reflect and are in essence what the ocean is, the droplets cannot contain the ocean the way the ocean can contain all the droplets. If you can grasp that, really grasp it, then you can begin to see that we are not separate entities.

We have different personalities and abilities. This is our "idea" of self but it is not the self at all. We wear these ideas of self and compare these with our ideas about others and with their ideas about us and themselves. Our interactions are nothing more than different ideas of selves bumping against one another. No wonder we compete, use and abuse, fail to love, and fail to interact from love. No wonder we can feign love or make outward gestures that at times appear to be loving while all the time be completely unable to be love itself. We can be nice, we can do nice things but are we truly coming from love? That is the ultimate question. We all have that gift but do we really, really realize it so that nothing gets in the way of being it?

When you can get into the mode of "oneness" and understanding that our human interactions are based upon a type of fiction, what is left to separate us? What is there not to love?

Our ideas seem to be who we are and we have known little else all our lives. Our society, our religions, our businesses, our politics, all that we know is based upon the system of our separateness and individuality. To give that up would seem too scary. To give that up would mean the ego has no life support system. Unless...unless we know that life will still go on and we shall still "see" and experience our individuality but we will know what it really is so that we can truly utilize the gift of love that we are.

Though some people think that ego actually dies or needs to, I don’t think it does or needs to. I think that ego would come under the mastery of love and it will perform as it was meant to perform. Ego will take its rightful role. Ego doesn’t change – we do or at least our consciousness does. We humans get things so backwards. The great teachers like Jesus came as messengers and sometimes humans mistake the messenger as the message itself. Like that finger pointing to the moon. We get fixated on the finger and miss the moon entirely. Oh, we see the moon out of the corner of our eye but we don’t SEE it. We lay flowers at the foot of the messenger or we kill the messenger. Either way, we miss the message. We worship the finger or kill the finger and miss the moon.

But OH! When we start turning our faces towards that moon, what a difference it makes! We don’t just talk the talk, we start walking the talk.

The greatest of these is love. There is nothing greater – not education, not beauty, not worldly power, not money, not position, not relationships, not even the talents we possess, though these in themselves are not bad and are gifts for which we may truly be grateful. When we are love, there is nothing else to be or do except let it flow into the many forms it takes. It will anyway. The difference is that we get to be aware of this process as we dance in our bliss.

If you make only one thing your goal let it be this. Be aware of the love you are. When you are aware of that then nothing is impossible, everything is sacred, everything is beautiful, and you know that there is no thing that in essence is not you.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added unto you.

Parables become the transmission for that which is not so easily conveyed with language, with words. Jesus, for example spoke in parables because how can you use words but as fingers pointing. The words are not it. The concepts of the words are not it. Only the moon is the moon. Only It is It. Each of us has to see that moon through our own eyes. No one can do that for us though many religions will point to themselves for you to see through them. They ask you to let them do it for you. So what you see is a moon that they have created. It is an image that they have drawn rather than the real thing. Only you can see the real thing.

Seek to be love. That is all that is necessary. But please do not take my word for it. See for yourself. Each has his/her own way to do this. That does not matter. Just do it! I can point you to the recipe but you have to gather your own ingredients and make it your own way.
Why would I not insist you do it my way, join my “church”, except my doctrine, take my vows? I would not insist because I know that those things do not matter. The finger never matters. It is the moon itself that matters. HOW you finally see it does not matter. That you do see it is. And once you do see that moon, you see that it is all there is. Once you see the moon, you realize that your beliefs are not it. Your ideas are not it. Your doctrine is not it. Your church is not it. Your attributes are not it. What you think you are is not it either.

Nathan Hale said, "Give me liberty or give me death". I say, "Give me love or I have not life nor am I free."

Love and be well.

I love a good massage and a good messsage!

It is a gift to me, to my body. I have been a very tense and intense person all my life. When one grows up walking on egg shells, one develops a keep-alive skill which includes hyper-vigilance. Not that I was ever in any danger of not being kept alive. It just felt that way. That hyper vigilance in turn keeps one keyed up more than the average person and for me it became a habit. So what I am trying to say is that I am not always able to completely relax or so it seems. My muscles tense up and pretty soon I am one walking tight ball of tenseness. I am trying to kick the habit of hyper vigilance but meanwhile I do what I can to "un-tense". Massage helps get the kinks out.

So, I was laying there enjoying my wonderful (this time) 90-minute massage when I started thinking about my matronly figure with all it's flaws - wrinkles, cellulite, moles, freckles, sagging skin and other sagging parts, etc. I am terribly upset that my body has taken on so many pounds because of that threat to my health and well-being (according to the most popular medical beliefs our society carries).

I mentioned to my therapist Linda that I was concerned about my weight and that didn't like it that I had no waist anymore. She noted that I still have curves. I smiled remembering when that was a more obvious truth but I thought, “Yeah, my body IS still curvy. Heavy but curvy.”

Then as I continued to relax, I realized the love inside me and I let it rise up within and in my head I started saying "I love you" with great passion. I was speaking to my body and just loving it. Then I was saying “I love you” to the whole of me and to what it is that is truly who I am. Then that love just flooded through me and I was beginning to become an intense point of love that just spread through me and out into the room to consume everyone and everything that is. I suppose you could say “I” expanded.

I thought, "Wow! Is this wonderful or what?" I felt so good and just settled down to enjoy the rest of my massage loving every minute, every breath that gave life to my body.

I felt fantastic the rest of the evening and this morning I feel so alive and so good in spite of waking up many times during the night.

I am! God is! Love is! And it is fantastic to be alive in body and in Spirit.

I'm pumped up and ready to flow.

I invite you to take my hand and let us flow together.