There is an immense and profound connection between having an attitude of gratitude and being a recipient of grace. November is the season during which we are encouraged to focus on being thankful for all our blessings. However, at this time in history, as well as the period of the first thanksgiving in America, there was very little for which to be thankful. In the first thanksgiving many had died and living conditions were extremely harsh. Today, many have also died from war, disease, destitution and despair, and living conditions for millions are extremely grim.

Yet, we are encouraged or even admonished in Scripture to be thankful in the midst of trials and tribulations. “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” I Thessalonians 5:18.The key word in this scripture is IN everything, not FOR everything. There is a big difference between feeling gratitude in painful situations and being thankful for the situation itself. It isn’t impossible, but it takes a little longer to be able to get a larger perspective.

Confusion about gratitude stems from of Judeo-Christian traditions that taught we should be grateful for everything in our lives because it all comes through a loving God. However, in reality, we don’t believe it. Most wrestle with the huge contradiction of a loving God allowing tragedy in our lives, and then expecting our gratitude for it. So then in addition to feeling confused, we feel guilty because we can’t or won’t comply with the commandment.

The conflict in understanding the true purpose of the commandment to be grateful in all things stems from the mistaken belief that light and dark, good and bad are mutually exclusive and separate realities; and therefore, only light and good things come from God who is also light and goodness. The dark and bad things come from the Devil, who is dark and bad. It follows naturally for our minds to conclude that if we are grateful in or for bad things, we are aligning with and empowering the Devil.

However, many scriptures in the Old and New Testament of the Bible refute this line of thinking. They refer to God as being One, including the light and the dark, the good and the bad. God told Moses, “…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life; that both you and your seed may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19 Choosing life would be a no-brainer one would think. However, humanity has been stumbling over it for 4,000 years because most people can’t wrap their heads around God allowing the dark and sad aspects of life.

Here is where it becomes crucial that we understand the bigger picture of the underlying purpose of the principle. Because if we don’t; we stay locked in a destructive belief system that keeps us cut off from grace; and therefore, victimized by every difficult situation. God’s plan out of this dilemma is that we go through tribulation via gratitude IN all things, which activates divine grace to transform our understanding of the trial. Only through the experience of grace can we understand that “all things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to his purposes.” Romans 8:28

Without grace bestowed through gratitude, the world does indeed become a living hell. We writhe in a state of chaos and confusion, continually asking “Why?” Our reasoning mind believes we can find a reason for everything. But reality is too complex for simplistic answers. We must trust there is an unseen purpose for each seemingly random act. Ultimately the reason for everything is our understanding that through gratitude, which activates the experience of grace, we can know whatever happens is for our instruction and edification to bring us into an intimate relationship with the All One/God.

We take the first step in faith by being grateful in our trial, and the Spirit of Grace infuses the situation transforming it from darkness and death into light and life. Immediately we have turned the corner and we aren’t fueling the curse anymore. Gratitude opens the spout where the grace comes out. It is the experience of the grace that fills and lifts us, transforming the dark matter in our hearts to light.

“We don’t need a revolution in the United States. We already had one, thank you. What we need now is an American Evolution, where We the People evolve into the citizens the country’s founders dreamed of.” Swami Beyondananda

Science, through the Human Genome Project, has recently discovered that our genes don’t control our physical and behavioral traits. This new discovery is akin to the discovery of fire! Up until now the old theory of genetic determinism imprisoned us into believing we were weak, frail victims of our heredity. “If mom died at 50, I probably will too.” Or, “My whole family is fat so I guess I just inherited those “fat genes”.

The new science called Epigenetics means “above” (epi) genetics. And “above” they went. They learned we don’t have very many more genes than lowly animals. What then accounts for the increased complexity of humans if not the genes? What influences whether or not you die at 50 like your mom or are fat like uncle George? The answer will shock you because it shocked the scientists.

First of all they discovered the nucleus wasn’t the brain of the cell that determined the health and nature of that cell. Rather, the cell’s brain was in its membrane. This is akin to the discovery of the wheel! Healthy cells in a Petri dish placed next to a dish of sick, toxic cells became toxic. They weren’t physically intermingled. It was strictly environmental influence. In cloning research, they discovered by placing neutral cells next to a dish of liver cells, the neutral cells became liver cells! The stimulus from the surrounding environment determined cell identity and not the genes.

In humans the emotions are the stimuli for our cells. Our thoughts via the brain create the emotions in our bodies. Emotions of love joy and peace build healthy cells and strengthen our immune system. Conversely the opposite emotions over time tear down the cells and weaken the immune system.

At this major crossroads as a civilization we are being gifted with this wisdom to enable us to abort a destructive mission of humanity and our planet. Our ancient ancestors knew all this viscerally of course. In our pride and arrogance we dismissed their knowledge as either too primitive, pagan or New Age woo-woo. But now we can accept it because science has proven it in the laboratory. Whee! However, on the flip side, we also have learned how some ancient civilizations destroyed themselves because they chose selfish power over selfless cooperation. They became like cancer cells that greedily take over the whole organism until they kill it. (Sounds like large corporation cells).

All of Nature including humans grow and increase on this principle of creation through cooperation. It is not survival of the fittest as Darwin proposed. It appeared that way on the surface, but upon closer examination, and with advanced technology, we now know that isn’t how life works. We must abandon all beliefs based on this violent non-cooperative model.

We must avoid horrific apocalyptic movies and books that scare the life out of us because they transform our healthy cells to toxic cells. Besides, apocalypse simply means “change”, not annihilation. The Mayan prophesy about 12/21/2012 does not say the world as a planet will cease to be. It says “business as usual” will cease because a change is happening to consciousness in all of creation. We are even seeing U-Tube videos of animals who are normally enemies playing together. Could this be a fulfillment of Isaiah 11:6 which says “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child shall lead them.” This passage is thought to be a prophesy of the coming of a millenium of peace aka the New Heaven and the New Earth?

The implications of these new discoveries as to how life works are staggering, and put us in the driver’s seat instead of the trunk. Each of us is a mini-world. We are each a self-contained universe with 50 trillion cells in one body! Can you imagine? If each cell was a whole body they would fill 7,000 Earths. In addition to that, most every cell has its own nervous, digestive, respiratory, musculoskeletal, reproductive, and immune system!

Imagine each of us creating an environment of peace and cooperation; joining with other like-minded souls to create a tsunami to cleanse all toxic cells from the Earth. Can we do it in time? I believe we can. If it was impossible we wouldn’t be flooded with all this wild, wonderful and enlightening information. I say, let’s believe we can. We can start by acting “as if” it is possible to make a quantum shift in consciousness on a universal scale. Let’s start today!

NOTE: Information for this article is from a new book Spontaneous Evolution, Our Positive Future (and a way to get there from here) by Bruce H. Lipton and Steve Bhaerman, aka Swami Beyondananda

.

Halloween is an offshoot of an ancient Celtic celebration called Samhein, meaning “summer”. Celebrated on October 31st, it marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter on November 1st which was also their New Year. The Celts populated most of Britain, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain and Asia Minor around 800 B.C. They believed that on October 31st the veil that separated the living from the dead was the thinnest; and therefore, communication with the ancestors was easiest. Spirits crossed over the veil throughout the year, but it was much easier for them to materialize and move matter during the period of Samhein.

After Christianity spread all over Europe, Samhein was changed to All Hallows Eve. November 1st became All Hallows Day and later renamed All Saints Day. Hallows Eve eventually became Halloween.

It has only been since the 19th century that people stopped believing that deceased souls could continue to communicate with souls living on the physical plane. Everyone, up until that time, whether Christian or pagan, was immersed in the sacred and the mystical aspects of nature and the cosmos. They believed everyone was an eternal soul that followed nature’s pattern in the universal ‘birth, death, re-birth’ cycle of creation. They knew that nothing really ‘died” in the sense that it ceases to exist. It just changes form. Science has proven this to be true. However, instead of naming this essence ‘life’ or ‘soul/spirit’ they call it “energy”.

No matter how pervasive scientific theory has become, the sacred, mystical beliefs and practices haven’t died, but are still very much alive. They just change form like water that can become ice and steam. So whether one is living life from the ‘Outside’ in a physical costume on loan from the Cosmic Costume Store, or they’re living souly from the ‘Inside’ without the costume, they are still a living soul.

Prior to the Age of Reason most everyone believed communication with the other dimensions was possible and mostly beneficial. For example, experiences with angelic beings were common. Encounters with nature spirits filled mythologies and fairy tales that we enjoy today. However, after science became the ultimate authority, anything not measurable in a laboratory was considered unreal or unreasonable. This included anything mystical, spiritual or sacred. The established church reigned over the mystical and science ruled everything else.

Unfortunately, the established church at the time decided to demonize any unsanctioned interaction between the living and the dead, even to the point of killing anyone suspected of those ‘unholy practices’. Pagans of all types including herbalists were prosecuted. These judgments prevail today, but souls still come out to play on Halloween. You just can’t keep a good ghost down!

Humanity has known for thousands of years that light and dark, good and evil exist side by side. But since the scientific model took over we separated and judged what we couldn’t see with our eyes and measure or understand. Light was all good and dark was all bad. This view keeps us locked into an ‘either/or’ world of separation and division. These worlds don’t have longevity; but rather, they self-destruct because of the constant conflict that mind set generates. In reality it is a both/and universe, in which the light plays off the dark and vice versa. You can’t see the light without the dark. For example: no one can see a white dot on a white board! Simply put, without the play of opposites there would be no world.

How does all this relate to Halloween? It is a celebration of the dark and non-physical as being an integral part of the light and visible world. It is meant to teach the living how precious life in a physical costume is. Certainly, it is not always a bed of roses. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic ride, a grand ball worthy of our passion to dance till we drop.

As we too approach this winter season of dying, let’s open our minds and eyes to see beyond the veil to imagine what it might be like to not have a costume to play and dance on this physical plane. Listen for the music from the other side to appreciate every single dance step at this our ultimate costume party.

The spiral shape tends to inspire feelings of openness, freedom and adventure. It appears full of possibility. The circle on the other hand, is a closed system. Whatever you start with you finish with, so there isn’t opportunity for new adventure or imagination.

Circles are very useful, however, which is why they are pervasive in our culture. We have countless variations of the wheel serving all manner of utilitarian purposes. Our Newtonian science is based on the circle of cause and effect, action and reaction in a continuous circle. We don’t seem to have much use for spirals on the material plane of life because it is open ended.

When we use the circle of reaction method in relationships with others and nature itself, it shows itself to be inadequate in dealing with the complexities of life. This is evident in all the conflicts in the world today, which are fueled by individuals and nations in continuous circles of reaction to each other. The old Hatfield’s and McCoy’s feud lives on in different costumes.

It seems to be time to use an expanded paradigm of thinking and relating to each other and the world at large. By opening the circle into a spiral, we give ourselves the opportunity to respond instead of react. What is the difference? REACT means ‘to act in return or opposition or towards a former state’ (like a circle). RESPOND means ‘to answer’ (more open).

Reactions are mostly automatic, like a knee-jerk reaction to stimulus. It is just “a happening”; and therefore, we don’t feel we have any control over it. However, in truth, we do have control and we do have a choice; but we don’t apply it to situations in which our buttons are pushed. Someone attacks us physically or verbally and a primal reaction is triggered. Our society has always condoned reacting by striking back in like kind– no questions asked.

Responding, or answering, on the other hand implies taking time between the initial action and the answer or response. This newly created time space offers opportunity for processing information by listening to the other. It lends a feeling of open-mindedness to consider various alternatives to raw reaction. We have time and space to possibly “walk in the other’s shoes” for a few moments, which would enable one to see a different point of view. This in turn could lead to an understanding of why the other did or said what they did. With understanding comes a space for cooperation, and even compassion in some cases.

A good example of responding is found in the practice of non-violent communication. which uses the “Jack in the Box” method of communication. This is how it works. You place your order at the drive-thru speaker box. Jack responds by repeating what you ordered. Then you respond by affirming whether or not they heard you right. If not, you continue the interaction until you know that Jack in the Box fully understands your order.

If Jack simply ‘reacted’ to your order by giving it to the cook without verifying it with you, your order could possibly be wrong about half of the time. Jack’s owners learned this early on and chose to respond instead of react. They didn’t want employees assuming they understood what the customer said. Assuming is a huge problem with reaction as it is based solely on one’s individual limited perception of the situation regardless of what others are saying or doing.

Do you agree that we need to learn how to change from circles of reaction to be able to flow into spirals of response? To be able to respond we must learn to listen to others with our heart instead of reacting to words with our biased minds. Try this simple exercise. Listen with your heart to your spouse, children, co-workers, fellow students for just one day. Don’t interrupt anyone by talking over them. Just listen. Take a breath. Wait and feel if you need to respond verbally. Many times you will find there’s no need to say anything. Simply by listening with your heart, they felt heard and seen. Your spiral of response has opened up an infinite world of possibilities.

RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL

We hear many people today say, “I am not religious. I am spiritual.” What is the difference? Aren’t religious people spiritual? The spiritual group perceives religion as being a rigid belief system of rules that discourages, if not forbids, acceptance or investigation of other religious faiths. That perception is based on prejudiced statements by the religious establishment down through the ages such as, “The equal tolerance of religions is the same thing as atheism.” Pope Leo XIII, 1885.

Our weary world has been suffering under the crushing weight of religious intolerance for millennia; long before Pope Leo issued his limiting edict. Whenever any ideology is taken literally, it can foster hate and division. Literally following the Law to the letter doesn’t prevent one from verbally assaulting another soul. In fact, that is what Jesus accused the priests of his day of doing. He put the Spirit of the Law above the letter of the Law.

Following the Law religiously is different than experiencing the Spirit of the Law. Spiritually we can feel a heart connection to our fellow man, even if we don’t know him or what his religious or political beliefs are. This is because we are born with inherent empathy, which is our Soul/Spirit. But when we go unconscious or get buried under stress, then it is all too easy to stay in our heads, setting ourselves apart and judging others with different beliefs as being wrong, defective or just plain evil.

If anyone stands up and says, “Wait a minute. This action we’re taking doesn’t make sense from a compassionate, loving perspective.” they are labeled a rebel, a heretic or a subversive. Our self-righteous judgmental minds definitely don’t want to hear things like “Love your enemies. Do good to those who despitefully use you. Turn the other cheek. If one takes your coat, give him your cloak also.” as Jesus taught.

Since we all have a mind, we are all guilty of falling into its divisive clutches and existing in the limited thinking box that separates us from God and each other. But we have also been gifted by our Creator with the Spirit; and It is omnipresent Love residing within our hearts. In fact, all world religions have the same Golden Rule. Where religions have failed is in hiding this magnificent Truth from the masses by teaching exclusivity and separation. They shun unity and cooperation with those of different beliefs.

Our views of religion and the spiritual could expand if we viewed all sacred scripture as poetic love letters written to each individual human soul. Scripture, like poetry, was created using symbols and metaphors to fully express the essence of its meaning. It wasn’t intended to be taken literally. Emotions and deep spiritual truths cannot be dissected and understood by the reasoning mind. They are only experienced in the Soul.

To really appreciate and benefit from religious texts one must embody them as one would take in a work of art. If just read as a linear history or a doctrine of social behavior, the transformational purpose is lost, its power made impotent. To fully experience the Spirit of scripture, one must be willing and able to understand the symbolic and metaphoric meanings of the words and pictures they paint in our mind’s eye.

Read the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. It is written to be read on many levels of meaning. On one level, it is a poem of the wedding of King Solomon to his bride. On another level, it is about the symbolical marriage of the Creator with us, His creation. It is a lavish description of the intimate and extravagant devotion God has for the beloved, which is you and me.

This indescribable Love is the unconditional love we all long for. We continually seek it from one another, but rarely if ever find it in human form. This is because we were created to receive this deeper love from Spirit first, which enables us to love and accept ourselves. The more we are able to receive the unconditional love of Spirit and “fill our cup”, the more we are able to love and accept others because our “cup is overflowing”. It is a spiritual experience. It is not a religious doctrine.

We are always taking in information from everywhere, including our own repetitious thoughts, and most of it isn’t even true. If that weren’t bad enough, we act on that information blindly accepting the information as true. Then we process it by judging the information as good or bad, useful or worthless.

Acting on thoughts about information that may or may not be true is the cause of 99% of the suffering in our world. We are fabulous story tellers, and we weave epic stories that would make Hollywood jealous. We have a novel in our heads about who we are, who are parents are and what they did to us, about the world and what it is doing to us, and why or why not we can’t do anything to change it.

If we could stop ourselves for a few moments, jump out of the squirrel cage of our “monkey minds” and ask ourselves one question: “Is it true? Can I absolutely know it is true?” we would be shocked at what our answer would be. That’s because the answer would be “NO.”

We are all reluctant to admit that because: 1. We love to be right all the time; and 2. We can’t justify our feelings if they are based on a falsehood. If someone treats us badly in our opinion, we can think they don’t love us or they want to hurt us. Unless we come right out and tell them how we feel and ask them why they acted a certain way, we just believing our own very subjective thoughts. We ignore the fact that we’re the only ones that can make ourselves feel anything by the stories we tell ourselves.

Once I acknowledge that maybe the story I’m telling myself isn’t true, I open a whole new paradigm of possibilities as to what may be the truth in the situation. Many times we find out that someone’s behavior towards us had nothing at all to do with us. It’s possible they weren’t feeling good or they had just had some bad news. Unless we ask the person how they are feeling or what they are thinking, we can only assume. We when do that we make “an ass out of you and me”.

“To thine own self be true.” and “Know thyself.” are famous quotes. We TRULY can only know ourselves, which takes most of us a lifetime! So asking ourselves if something is true or not as we go along judging everything in our lives, can be a life saving and life changing tool. It literally changes the whole dynamic between people.

When we assume we know what another is thinking or believing, we react to them based on our beliefs. We project onto them the feeling of anger or hurt, which then elicits a negative response from them. This is turn fuels our belief that they have something against us; and on and on it escalates. We can see this happening on an individual level and community or world level. We aren’t asking the right questions and few, if any, are listening for any answers!

In fact, we rarely actually listen to ourselves let alone others. I personally believe this is the reason for all the conflict in the world. We’re rarely in silence. Wisdom always speaks in whispers. We can’t hear ourselves think. We’re acting on automatic pilot at warp speed. It becomes easy to make snap judgments about others and ourselves. We don’t stop to feel the effects of these judgments. Too time consuming, we think. So we stuff them into our backs or necks or digestive tracks.

Wouldn’t it be easier and healthier to catch the toxic process at the beginning when something happens that we don’t like or that makes us unhappy? Couldn’t we stop and ask, “Is it true?” Then wait long enough to hear the answer. If it isn’t true, keep questioning it until a satisfying more truthful answer surfaces. The answer is waiting within each of us. Ask and it will answer, but we must be still to hear it’s whisper. The truth will set us free, but we must have the courage to ask for it and the time to receive it.

The other night I was watching America’s Got Talent. Barbara Padilla was the last contestant to perform. I think that most people were in awe as she sang “Ave Maria” from a pedestal aglow with white light in a gown that flowed around her to the floor.

(cut and paste this into your browser to see her performance 9/8/09)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6sUaRagfDA#watch-main-area

Please watch the video of her performance through to the end as well as the judges’ comments. Notice Sharon Osborne’s comment at the end as she bows to her as a cancer survivor herself and as a woman. Piers said people would remember where they were and what they were doing on the night they heard her sing, (almost as we knew where we were on 9/11/01). It really was quite extraordinary. I felt so strongly that the essence of the Sacred Feminine, or the true personification of the Goddess was and is personified in Barara’s spirit and her voice.

She is not a virgin Mary, a holier than thou religioius saint, an evangelist for an ultruistic cause or any of that. She is a living breathing, sensuous, beautiful example of a complete woman. Her manifestation of the sacred side of femininity is actually able to bring spiritual and physical healing to others, because she is coming from the fullness of her heart.

I am always “beating the drum” about the need in the world for the return of the Sacred Feminine to offset the destructive, warrior nature of the patriarchial world we’ve endured for millenia. People generally misunderstand what I mean by that, and have flashbacks to the women’s liberation movement. That movement helped women come out of servitude, but it turned many men and women against women’s rights because it too had a warrior nature.

But now we have been blessed to experience a world performance of what the restoration of the Sacred Feminine looks like in 2009. Men and women alike acknowledge the rise of a transcendent awe and love that fills them in the presence of this beautiful energy.

Barbara inpires all of us to know that the Spirit she manifests is in each and every one of us. If each of us could go through our day with this open hearted feeling of love and compassion that we feel when hearing and seeing Barbara then world peace would not be far behind.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power we will have peace.” Jimmy Hendricks

There is hope for peace… if we learn how to listen to and really see each other. The human drive for power will rule the roost until a way is opened up within the heart to see and feel how that power affects the powerless. This point was driven home to me as I watched Bill Moyers Journal program on PBS this past weekend. A reformed and contrite CIGNA Insurance Co. executive, Wendell Potter, related how he had supported the insurance giant’s refusal to cover life threatening surgeries and treatments to increase their stockholder value.

Mr. Potter went into great detail explaining how the insurance companies use deceptive propaganda about regulated insurance calling it socialism. They lie to discredit anyone who exposes their draconian policies in an attempt to rein them in.

(You may view the entire interview on this link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/. (You will be shocked and dismayed to hear the truth of what is really going on “under the hood” so to speak.)

What could possibly have caused Mr. Potter to do an about face and expose the almost criminal policies of his employer of many years? It turns out, he felt guided to attend a health care exposition in his home state of West Virginia while visiting family there. He assumed it would be a typical health fair with booths and free samples of health care goodies and free blood pressure testing.

However, what he saw was incredible to him. Doctors and nurses had set up tents to provide totally free care. Some even set up in the animal stalls. He saw people being treated on gurneys on the rain- soaked pavement. There were hundreds of people waiting in long lines. Some had driven long hours from surrounding states.

It dawned on him that some of these people could be folks he’d grown up with. He felt like he had been hit by a lightening bolt. He couldn’t believe he was in America! He had been so insulated in his ivory tower high rise in Philadelphia, flying on corporate jets with gold plated silverware. He realized that these poor uninsured citizens had no idea of the opulence afforded to corporate executives of health insurance companies.

In all the years he worked for CIGNA he had never come face to face with the reality of how the purging from the rolls, the raising of premiums and denying of claims had affected the average American. He said, “When you’re reporting to the financial analyst of the company all you think about are the numbers. You don’t think about individual people. You think only about meeting Wall Street’s expectations. It enables one to stay there if you don’t really think that you’re talking about and dealing with real human beings.”

After the health fair incident as he was struggling with how to reconcile his work with CIGNA and what he knew now as reality, a quote from Profiles in Courage by President John Kennedy haunted him. “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain neutrality.” He knew this applied to him. He was transformed and resigned from CIGNA. Now he is telling the inside story of the mercenary tactics of the corporate giants that don’t want to lose power, and are willing to do anything to keep it.

Potter is just one man that has ‘seen the Light’ and responded with love for his fellow man. He gave up the lust for power for the love of people. He was only able to do this because he was led to SEE the reality from within his own heart. He was not badgered and criticized by activists. He was gifted the grace and space to open and take in the suffering of real people and see how his actions affected them on the ground. (Please do check out the program on PBS.)

Mr. Potter’s conversion inspired me to ponder, ‘how many more blind executives might be able to descend their ivory towers and empathize with the average American suffering under corporate greed and lust for power?’ Instead of just assuming they are all evil monsters, maybe we can encourage more of them to experience reality as Mr. Potter did. It can open the fortress a crack and let the Light shine in so the power of Love can do its perfect work.

Remember this charming song from several years ago? Our world was in a bit of mess then too, but not nearly as seriously as now. It’s a little harder today to sing this little tune and pump oneself up. However, it does convey a universal truth that will work if we work it.

We’ve had movies like The Secret that explain a Law of Attraction in our Universe, which teach us how and why people and things show up in our lives. We attract what we think about, or we attract what we love by paying attention to it. And yes, it’s true that some of us love drama and problems and chaos, even though we don’t like to admit it.

Of course, none of us is doing a jig over the financial mess. Most of us feel pretty helpless when it comes to doing anything to help correct it. But that aside, we can take responsibility for our own attitude moment to moment regardless of the outside circumstances. In fact, controlling ourselves is all we can do.

So with that in mind I would like to share a little something I stumbled upon from one of the internet sites I visit frequently called A Space of Love hosted by Heather Mcauley. Years before The Secret appeared on the scene, Heather taught her five year old daughter, Amelia, to imagine whatever she wanted to have or do as if it was already real. Then she told her to stop thinking about it and just be happy and grateful. Amelia’s been manifesting trips, horses, and all types of fun for the past several years. Now around age twelve Heather asked her what she would advise adults who are “freakin’ out” over lack of money.

She said that instead of “freakin’ out” about a lack, picture what you want and imagine it like it’s happening. Then don’t think about it. Go about doing your normal thing and be happy. If it doesn’t work it’s because it depends on what you think will work for you. (We’re back to you are and have what you believe).

Next you should empty your mind, focus on what you want and not worry at all. You can meditate to help empty your mind. Do the normal things you do, and don’t worry about it. Be happy and picture yourself with money, but not a whole house full of money. Then people may come in try to steal it!

When asked if she pictured herself with money, she said “No. I pictured myself going to Disneyland and stuff like that”.

Amelia went on to say that if you have a child, you might want to play with him or her for awhile. There is something about children. They can feel upset if their parents are preoccupied and not there for them. She concluded with these words of encouragement:
“Love is the strongest thing in the world. It makes people feel good, it makes them feel better, and it always brings happiness, no matter how sad you are, knowing that you’re loved.”

Out of the mouths of babes comes great wisdom. Speaking of wisdom, Albert Einstein is known to have said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. He ought to know. His imagination brought us the theory of relativity that changed the world forever! He also said “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

There is another internet person who is storming the world with what he calls Mind Movies. He teaches you how to make a movie of your imagined life so you can literally watch your dreams come to life in your very own movie. You obviously are happy, excited and enthused while watching your movie; and therefore, the joyful feelings crowd out worry and fear. Then, guess what. Yep, you guessed it. Money, love, peace and joy begin to manifest in your life, just like it did for Amelia. So you can sing, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

You can go high tech or low tech, but do indulge yourself in your delightful imagination and partake of life’s “coming attractions” NOW.

Now that is quite a wild statement. But think about it for a moment…or two. If our present moment is pre-sent, who sent it? And why should I care? I have enough to think about without questioning where the present came from and who sent it. Good grief!

Though it feels like a silly conundrum of confusion, it is really a profound thought, which if pondered for awhile will lead to a liberating revelation.

We are living on the surface of a infinitely enormous mystery. Our bodies alone are so complex we haven’t even begun to figure them out or identify all the components. Each one of us in a magnificent universe unto ourselves. We are actually a hologram and everything we experience is a holographic image as well. As you know they can clone something from just one cell. This in itself is mind boggling.

What does this mean in your everyday life? It means that if you live your life as if this material world is all there is; you will be very confused and discouraged most of the time. Remember, the material world around us is only about 1% of reality. The remaining 99% is unseen by human eyes. Can you imagine deciding anything in your life with only 1% of the necessary information? I think not. And yet, we do it all the time.

Experts tell us that we only use about 10% of our brain power. The other 90% is just sitting there doing nothing. Why is that!? I would think that would really upset people. I would think they would want to know immediately, if not sooner, how to access that 90% so their life could be more manageable and enjoyable. However, for some unknown reason, we just go on with life as if we never even heard that incredible information.

Okay now. Back to the present. We hear a lot lately about being present, living in Presence, being here now, because NOW is all there is. But the NOW is a product of the past moment. If you were sad a moment ago, you are probably sad now. Therefore, you sent yourself a sad thought to be experienced in the future, which is now the present. So your “present” has been “pre-sent”. Get it?

We can have an incredibly rich life if we challenge ourselves to use the 90% of our minds to consciously create our future “present” moments by visioning in the current present what we want to feel and experience in the future present. This is the awesome gift of free will that distinguishes us from other species. We can co-create our future by choosing what we think about in the present!

Proverbs says that “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”. It isn’t what other people think about you that determines who you are. What others think of you is none of your business! It’s their business. No one can make you think anything you don’t want or choose to think. Nor can you make anyone else think something they don’t want to think.

So why do we spend so much time and effort struggling to control others and our material world? If it is a losing game, why play it? Good question, don’t you think? Well, I believe we keep playing it because we are choosing to use the 10% of our minds to figure out the 1% of reality. Real life is going on subliminally in the 90% of our minds in the 99% of reality!

It does sound crazy doesn’t it? That’s because it is! Now that the whole world is turned inside out and everyone can see behind the curtain and they can see the emperor has no clothes, people are freaking out. “What in the world can we do?!” Nothing! We can only change our world by changing our perception using the 90%.

Ernest Holmes who wrote The Science of Mind said, “Change your thinking; change your life”. And he was right. Our thoughts are the steering wheel of our life vehicle. It’s time to wake up and enjoy the Present you Pre-sent yourself consciously.