Peace Principles by Dr. Susanne Freeborn

All of what we do as we live here in this lovely house involves living here consciously, appreciating the richness of what we have. Our house is surrounded by gardens that are largely perennial.

This is Firecat scratching the post that Dan made for him and his pal Teaser, shown above on the deck.

Dan has worked on the house constantly, putting in the saltillo tile floors shown below and designing and building the library stacks of vertical grain fir, finishing and hanging the beautiful doors and creating a wonderful lighting plan for our downstairs.

We live in a gorgeous brown shingled house with entwined cedars right outside the window. We see these beauties when we wake in the morning. These trees serve as a metaphor for how our lives have become involved with the woods and the lake since coming here. Currently Dan is staining the trim of our house. The fascia boards and rain gutters are being painted an earthy red, the downspouts a rich brown similar to the shingles, the corner boards a dark chocolate and the soffits are a natural cedar color. The shingles wait until next year. It's woodsy and warm looking.

The house is about 100 yards from Toad Lake. This sky view photo was taken this Spring. We live near the tiny meadow you can see just below the lake.

RESPONSE TO A CYBER CONFESSION

2008-07-27T00:49:00.000-07:00

Father John Bakas

A Cyber Confession

What's the one thing you've done no one else can ever know?

The mere thought of dredging up some dark and hidden sin, inspires a hard gulping swallow, a pounding heart and perhaps a blush on the cheeks.

Unconfessed sin left festering deep in our psyche can cause psychosomatic illness. It gnaws on our conscience and robs us of inner peace and tranquility. Sin simply means missing the mark or misusing the full potential of the gifts God has given us.

The Epistle of James chapter 5:16 tells us: "Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much."

The early Christian church believers practiced something that today would be considered radical. They practiced public confession...confessing sins publicly in the context of community. The practice become over time unworkable, causing division, scandal and rancor in the church. The church community representative, the priest, was eventually charged with listening to confessions and the sacrament of confession developed to fulfill the healing and restorative benefits of confession.

Our western society has difficulty with the concept of confession and sin. Admitting that we have sinned to a person or group somehow negatively impacts us in a culture artificially propped up with issues of self image and self esteem. It's not my fault; it is someone else's, etc., etc. Yet as the saying goes, we need to sometimes "get something off our chests". We now can do that easily without exposure or repentance. There are now quick convenient and anonymous ways to deal with those nagging indiscretions of ours: cyberspace confessions. It is the internet confessional. It's trendy and catching on.

Have some slip-ups to shake loose and can't or won't make it down to the parish priest? No problem. Just have them absolved and dealt with by posting them online at an e-confessional. You're just a few keystrokes away from artificially deleting a guilty conscience. These sites offer other the chance to see what you've posted and see if your sins are comparable or as grievous as theirs.

What a voyeuristic bonus! The rest of the world can get online and identify with the transgressions of others. And consider the therapeutic benefits in this system. We can delude ourselves into thinking how very good we are in comparison to others. Who needs a priest or time of prayer and self reflection anymore? We can fool ourselves by thinking we can hide from God. We get trapped into a false reality which accommodates itself to our comfort level of anonymous silence.

Yet, divorced from God's love, mercy and forgiveness, turning our backs on the light who is Christ, the shadows grow dark and deep. We still flirt and are secretly confused by dark thoughts; dark words; dark emotions; dark actions; dark omissions. Yes, we are hiding from the living God, and we are overwhelmed by the shadowy monsters we create by our own sin.
True confession before God, whether in the solitude of a repentant heart or before a priest in the sacrament of confession, leads to healing. The confession of a contrite heart restores a right relationship with a relational God. Confession isn't an information transfer; it is a relational healing.

That is why "share-a-sin" on an e-confessional site is such a tawdry distortion of the true spiritual rhythm of confession. Cyber-confession is anonymous. Christian sacramental confession is personal. Cyber-confession is the announcement of wrongs to an impersonal Web site. Christian sacramental confession is ownership of wrongs to a personal and caring God. Cyber-confession results in entertainment for others. Christian sacramental confession results in re-connection of damaged relationships with others.

Whether you go to confession or not. Whether you are a believer or not. Whether you believe that all of this is medieval superstitions and dead and brittle fairytales, at least let the words of this confessional prayer, penetrate beneath any cynicism, anger, and personal bitterness. May these words soften your heart.

"Most merciful God, I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what I have done and by what I left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. Have mercy upon me and forgive me; that I may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to glory of your name. Amen"

PUBLISHED AT HUFFINGTON POST HERE

PART ONE OF A THREE PART RESPONSE TO FATHER BAKAS:

Confession calls for a belief in the concept of sin. That word "sin" has a good many meanings according to particular faith traditions, moral and ethical beliefs, a good many of us would agree that it hasn't got a universal definition, but rather, a general direction it takes in use. Here's a definition I found:

A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate.
Theology. Deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.
A condition of estrangement from God resulting from such disobedience.
Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong.
intr.v., sinned, sinning, sins.
To violate a religious or moral law.
To commit an offense or violation.
[Middle English sinne, from Old English synn.]

This seems to imply that we can know the will of God. That is a rather large implication. It assumes that we can know what God is, and then assumes that God has a will, somewhat like a human being, that we can understand and access. Many would not agree, and I among them stand with my doubts.

PART TWO:
Many do not believe you can ever be estranged from God, but that you might think, believe or act as if you are capable of estrangement. Mystics of the many faiths do not believe this. Nor do all faiths agree about what a transgression or sin might be.

Many faiths don't have "exterior" laws, but instead are based in a kind of personal integrity that arises out of a practice of an "interior" awareness of consciousness, a rendering of close attention to life itself, of observing ones thoughts, & living in harmony with what learns of life itself.

Many believe there is nothing but God, & that sin is merely a mistaken understanding, an error based in feelings that the good things of life are scarce; that religious laws are exterior to the individual, i.e., imposed by others, & are followed by those who have not learned to develop an interior level of personal integrity that allows them to make harmonious ethical choices for how to live.

PART THREE
Each of us needs a level of forgiveness for our mistakes & poor choices. We need to accept responsibility & do what we can to help those we hurt or harm in any way. We need to recognize that when we are genuinely willing to accept responsibility that the satisfaction of our debts to others is determined by those we've hurt. If I hurt someone else, it is s/he who must be satisfied with my apology & my amends because it is s/he who was hurt. My forgiveness of myself does not rely on the acceptance of my efforts to apologize and correct my mistakes, however.

Neither should I "forget" the harm I caused. My mistakes need not be carried like a burden, but lightly as a generous gift that protects me from repeating those same mistakes with anyone else. Consciousness requires that we observe our lives & grow as a result of our expanded expression of personal integrity. As Randy Pausch said in his famous last lecture: "Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not yourself."

Be Grateful to Everyone

2007-02-09T02:06:00.000-08:00

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

By Pema Chodron
This essay was excerpted from "Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living" (Shambhala Publications), which describes the Tibetan lojong, or mind-heart training techniques. Each lojong teaching corresponds to one of 59 "slogans" or guideposts. "Be grateful to everyone" is the 13th slogan. Reprinted with permission.
The slogan "Be grateful to everyone" is about making peace with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected. Through doing that, we also make peace with people we dislike. More to the point, being around people we dislike is often a catalyst for making friends with ourselves. Thus, “Be grateful to everyone.”
If we were to make a list of people we don't like--people we find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contempt--we would find out a lot about those aspects of ourselves that we can't face. If we were to come up with one word about each of the troublemakers in our lives, we would find ourselves with a list of descriptions of our own rejected qualities, which we project onto the outside world. In traditional teachings on lojong it is put another way: other people trigger the karma that we haven't worked out. They mirror us and give us the chance to befriend all of that ancient stuff that we carry around like a backpack full of granite boulders.
“Be grateful to everyone” is a way of saying that we can learn from any situation, especially if we practice this slogan with awareness. The people and situations in our lives can remind us to catch neurosis as neurosis, to see when we’re in our room under the covers, to see when we’ve pulled the shades, locked the door, and are determined to stay there.
There’s a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness. Therefore, if the environment is supportive and encourages you to be brave and to open your heart and mind, you’ll find yourself opening to the wisdom and compassion that’s inherently there. It’s like tapping into your source, tapping into what’s already there. It’s the willingness to open your eyes, your heart, and your mind, to allow situations in your life to become your teacher. With awareness, you are able to find out for yourself what causes misery and what causes happiness.
“Be grateful to everyone” is getting at a complete change of attitude. It does not mean that if you’re mugged on the street you should smile knowingly and say, “Oh, I should be grateful for this,” before losing consciousness. This slogan actually gets at the guts of how we perfect ignorance through avoidance, not knowing that we’re eating poison, not knowing that we’re putting another layer of protection over our heart, not seeing through the whole thing.
”Be grateful to everyone” means that all situations teach you, and often it’s the rough ones that teach you best. There may be a Juan or Juanita in your life, and Juan or Juanita is the one who gets you going. They’re the ones who don’t go away: your mother, your husband, your wife, your lover, your child, the person that you have to work with every single day, part of the situation you can’t escape.
”Be grateful to everyone” means that all situations teach you, and often it’s the rough ones that teach you best.
These situations really touch you because there’s no pat solution to the problem. You’re continually meeting your match. You’re always coming into a challenge, coming up against your edge. There’s no way that someone else can tell you exactly what to do, because you’re the only one who knows where it’s torturing you, where your relationship with Juan or Juanita is getting into your guts. Others don’t know. They don’t know when you need to be gentle, when you need to be more clear, when you need to be quiet, and when you need to speak.
No one else knows what it takes for another person to open the door. For some people, speaking out is opening the door a little wider; for other people, being still is opening the door a little wider. It all has to do with what your ancient habitual reaction is to being in a tight spot and what is going to soften the whole thing and cause you to have a change of attitude. It’s the Juans and Juanitas who present us with these dilemmas, these challenges.
Basically the only way you can communicate with the Juans and Juanitas in your life is by taking the teachings and the practice very personally, not trusting anybody else’s interpretations, because you yourself have the wisdom within, and you yourself will find out how to open that door. As much as we would like Juan or Juanita to get out of our life and give us a break, somehow they stick around, and even if we do manage to get rid of them, they seem to reappear with another name and another face very soon. They are addressing the point at which we are most stuck.
The main point of “Be grateful to everyone”--the “dig”--is that you want to get rid of the situations that drive you most crazy. You don’t want to be grateful to them. You want to solve the problem and not hurt anymore. Juan is making you feel embarrassed, or degraded, or abused; there’s something about the way he treats you that makes you feel so bad you just want out.
This slogan encourages you to realize that when you’ve met your match you’ve found a teacher. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you shut up and don’t say anything and just stand there breathing in and out, although that might be exactly what you do. But [this practice] is much more profound than that. It has to do with how you open in this situation so that the basic goodness of Juan and Juanita and your own basic goodness begin to communicate.
Something between repressing and acting out is what’s called for, but it is unique and different each time. People have the wisdom to find it. Juan and Juanita have the wisdom, you have the wisdom, everyone has the wisdom to know how to open. It’s inherent in all of us. The path of not being caught in ego is a process of surrendering to situations in order to communicate rather than win.
Compassionate action, compassionate speech, is not a one-shot deal; it’s a lifetime journey. But it seems to begin with realizing that when Juan or Juanita is getting to you, pushing every button, it’s not as simplistic as just eating it, just being a worm, “Okay, let them attack me.” On the other hand, it’s not as easy as just saying, “I’ll get him.” It’s a challenge. This is how the koan appears in everyday life: the unanswerable questions are the greatest teachers.

Pema Chodron is a Buddhist nun, renowned for her teachings on compassion and meditation, and resident teacher of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Her books include 'Start Where You Are,' 'When Things Fall Apart,' and 'The Wisdom of No Escape.'

A Few Thoughts & Quotations on the Subject of Freedom

2007-02-09T01:20:00.000-08:00

"We do not control the thought of our race.  We do not even seem to be able to control our own thinking, for if we did we would be superior people.  But we can at least try to control our thought, and to that degree we can we exert some control over our environment.  There is no doubt but that we can fully control, but do we?  Who has yet seen anyone who did it perfectly?  However, in such degree as we can shift the basis of our imagery, our belief, our emotional and mental reactions to life, we can come to a place, individually, of peace and security and happiness, then gradually as these changes take place there will be a corresponding change in our environment."

Ernest Holmes
Freedom From Stress

This sounds particularly somber for Holmes, doesn't it? A few years ago there was a popular phrase "it beats whatever is in second place" and I am certain that he speaks to a principle that really does! Many times I have felt that my efforts were falling short of the vision I have found within and years ago I heard Dr. Tom Johnston at an International New Thought Alliance Conference in Arizona quoting Rev. Jack Boland, in an inspiration that I carry with me to this day. Boland said:
“Don’t let the good interfere with the better and don’t let the better interfere with the best.  I am not all I could be and I am not all that I want to be, but thank God I am not what I used to be.  How many times I have thanked God that I am not what I used to be.”
I have a measure of gratitude that I am not what I once was and that gratitude is a warm enough fire to get me through those times. I don't know if Ernest Holmes was right, perhaps he was hopeful in suggesting that we can fully control anything, but what I am certain of is that those things I don't enjoy that I can and do change always make life around me better. After practicing as a Religious Scientist for sixteen years much has changed in my life, and most of it is interior to my way of thinking, but it seems to make everyone around me happier and more successful too. All I ever wanted to do my whole life is to contribute to life itself and to those I love.  Changing what I think, what I believe is what I have done to free myself from stress in my life. I stopped doing things that regularly occur in an atmosphere of stress. Still, I don't mind working hard.  I enjoy the results of a big effort very much. I am happy to be free to make such choices for how to live my life and I have been thinking about that freedom a great deal lately and found these quotations spoke to me in different ways on the topic, perhaps they will speak to you as well. I know that what we believe certainly affects how we enjoy the freedom we have. John Adams seems to agree with me...Frederick Douglass seems to agree with me about effort being worthwhile. and Adlai Stevenson speaks to one of the reasons I find it safe to be myself.

"Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power."

John Adams
Second President of the United States (1797-1801)

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters." Frederick Douglass

"Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy, like a battery which one clips into an idea to make it run. ~ J. M. Coetzee

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~ George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." ~ Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

God blesses us always, and in all ways,

Love,

Susanne

Dr. Susanne Freeborn
Emerson Online Studies
www.emersononlinestudies.org
Tel:  360-671-5959
Fax:  360-671-5875
"It is our duty - as men and women - to behave as though limits to our ability do not exist. We are co-creators of the Universe."  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

2006-12-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 7 - Out of the Self, Into the Light

2006-12-11T18:53:00.003-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 6 - Picking a Path

2006-12-11T18:53:00.002-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 5 - Psychosis or Mystical State?

2006-12-11T18:53:00.001-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 4 - All Reality in One Moment

2006-12-11T18:53:00.000-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 3 - Intellectual Illumination

2006-12-11T18:52:00.001-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 2 - A Likely Story

2006-12-11T18:52:00.000-08:00

The Mystic Heart - Part 1- The Supreme Identity

2006-12-11T18:51:00.001-08:00

Ken Wilber - Anchoring I-Amness

2006-12-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

Ken Wilber - Spirituality and the 3 Strands of Deep Science

2006-12-02T00:53:00.000-08:00

John Lennon - Imagine Video

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

2006-12-02T00:49:00.000-08:00

U2 - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Awakening to the Inner Mystic, Part 4 (Conclusion)

2005-10-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

Life Really is More Meaningful

In your reverence for life you find that life itself is like a two-edged sword. If you use your life in a negative way you can hurt someone; but, inevitably you too will find yourself injured — perhaps not by the person you hurt but by some other precise means. If you use your life in a way that hurts others, each act will come back, each and every one, in detail. Causing suffering returns suffering; good returns good.

As you progress you will also discover that your increased awareness and reverence for life make profound changes in the way causes and effects act in your life. You become progressively free from negative experiences and revel in new causes.

Often conventional thinkers who view themselves as rational will make arguments that cause and effect is a bizarre philosophy of punishment for being alive and a rationalization for every unfavorable occurrence. However, you will see cause and effect, in your awakening, as a creative process — beautiful, exciting, just, and very helpful. Becoming more responsible for the condition of your life and attitudes, you take part in a regenerative process. You realize that a new life, one ever more to your liking, awaits you.

In essence, as your awakening begins you will very likely perceive more meaning and purpose in your life. You will become more fulfilled and able to accomplish your goals as you see a relationship between cause and effect, between your ideas (and feelings) and events in the outer world. You now know that your good returns good, that being “evil” is, indeed, cosmically stupid.

You have so much more to experience! The days and years of awakening and enlightenment rush toward you even as we sit here on this sunny beautiful Sunday morning! Wherever you are in your journey of life, you can always awaken to the inner mystic innate within your Self.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Affirmation:
I am free to generate new causes and change my world. As I change my thinking, I change my life!

Awakening to the Inner Mystic, Part 3

2005-10-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

Cause and Effect Insight...

Because you are being appreciative of life you understand it more clearly. Your reverence for life gives you deeper levels of wisdom and more opportunities for fulfillment. Isn’t it amazing to find this powerful Truth within yourself?

Another brilliant sign of your awakening is your heightened awareness of cause and effect. You see that the events of your life are the results of causes. You recognize that what happens to you each day is not based on random, irrational fates. Rather, your thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions most significantly cause and influence your personal experiences of life. While some events in your life remain perplexing and inexplicable, more often than not you can understand why other people and life in general treat you the way they do. You gain the insight which enables you to examine your good experiences and create (cause) more of them.

Further, you stop ignoring the experiences that seem bad if you are truly awakening. Whenever something painful or otherwise negative happens to you, you seek an insight about what caused such an unpleasant effect. Then, in your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, you strive to cause a preferred effect, a more satisfying and ideal result.
As you progress you cannot help but notice the good you do for people, or for the world in general, comes back to you in kind — not necessarily directly from the people you helped but by some perceptible means your "good returns good" to you. This is the Law of Circulation. Mystics use this law all the time!

Those who would do harm — either in thought, feeling, word, or action — often find such thoughts and acts comes back to haunt them in the same flavor they have given, sometimes in an indirect but perceptible way. What we give – we eventually receive.

Each day you appreciatively watch cause and effect relationships going back and forth, on and on, in simple or complex combinations. No longer does life seem to have no rhyme and reason, or seem absurd as many existentialists regularly exclaim. As a mystic you are coming to know the original Cause and how to master the creation of secondary cause.

Part 4 (Conclusion) tomorrow...

Awakening to the Inner Mystic, Part 2

2005-09-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

But I don’t understand…

Many spiritual students have experiences they don’t understand and they often don’t have qualified teachers to help them understand what it is that they are experiencing. Often, these very earnest students are having genuinely enlightening experiences, but since they are not yet experienced enough, they cannot comprehend or evaluate what is happening to them. And so they do not recognize or build upon their tremendous blessings. To uninformed seekers, one experience may seems as important or unimportant as another. This phenomena slows progress because when we don’t recognize our growth and our spiritual experience we often fail to properly engage a principle we have grasped and it simply falls by the way side, to be learned all over again later, hopefully at a time when we have a spiritual mentor who can helps us to recognize the spiritual progress we have made. In New Thought, a teacher is more of a pathfinder, a discernable distance ahead on the path of enlightenment, testing and mapping it and reporting back to a body of students studying along with them. We are a teaching and learning community.

Many times, spiritual awakening is confused with psychic states or a flood of vivid impressions projected from the subconscious mind. It’s a "precious and rare thing," unless you have an enlightened teacher, to know where you are coming from and where you are going as awakening begins. Awakening events can occur to you for years but you probably will not give them the attention they deserve unless you have a basic familiarity with the road ahead.
You may internally have had a feeling that you are not becoming enlightened, easy enough to feel this way if you are missing the signs of change within yourself, while indications of your awakening are all around you. It’s essential, if you wish to make gratifying, lasting progress, that you understand the dawning of higher consciousness and what the stages in this process signify in your spiritual progress.

As you proceed, you must be alert to recognize your own progress. A partnership with a spiritual community makes all the difference!

Reverence for All Life...

The first sign of awakening is usually a growing reverence for life. You find you are immensely appreciative of being alive. Life itself is revealed as a wonder or a miracle. In your reverence for life, with great delight, you appreciate the lives of others and the very life that you are given. You recognize life as extremely precious and extraordinary phenomena. You find it easy to conceive in your musings that incredibly great consciousness and energy is at work wherever there is life. With awe and enthusiasm you often turn your mind to consider how great must be that higher consciousness which gives life and sustains it!

You KNOW that in life itself there is enough to wonder at forever. In your unique heart you see enough to explore and develop for much more than a lifetime. What is life? Who can say? But you, the engaged spiritual student, wholeheartedly treasure being alive and love to watch that life force animating each person; indeed, you admire all living creatures.

You become aware that you may have many negative qualities but, nevertheless, you have an extremely positive and undeniable advantage — you have life! You are life! Life occurs through you! You are an expression of that higher consciousness which maintains and sustains life. Life is a marvel. You see it. You know it. You abide in wonder.

Haven’t you found, with these realizations, that you really do value other people a great deal? Whether they value themselves and have noticed the miracle of life or not, you see the uniqueness and significance in each one. You have become enabled, as your eyes of higher consciousness open, to see life well. You can easily understand why Albert Schweitzer said that it’s fine to cut the grass in order to grow a garden, but on the way home from the garden do not drag your scythe and needlessly kill one blade of grass. This now makes great sense to you.

Ernest Holmes wrote in the Science of Mind:

“One of the most illuminating things which mysticism has revealed is that evil is not an ultimate reality, it is simply an experience of the soul on its journey toward Reality. Evil is not an entity, but an experience on the pathway of self-unfoldment. It is not a thing of itself but simply a misuse of power. It will disappear when we stop looking at, or indulging in, it. We cannot stop believing in it as long as we indulge in it, so the mystic has always taught the race to turn from evil and do good.”

As you grow into yourself, you also clearly begin to understand the maxim: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You know all people are, in reality, connected in a web of all life, that there truly is a unity of all life that has no exceptions. You deeply yearn that everyone will see the preciousness of life and not hurt, deny, or strive to destroy the life in another.

Your awakening to life’s richness also prompts a profound consideration of your own conduct. Your interactions with others more deeply reflect your respect for their concerns and feelings. You actively strive not to harm people or cause them any suffering. You practice, "Do unto others ...." You seek to be constructive and helpful to your fellow human beings.

Part 3 tomorrow...

Awakening to the Inner Mystic, Part 1

2005-09-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

The Edge

Come to the edge the voice said softly

No they said it's too high

Come to the edge the voice insisted

No she said it's too dangerous

Come to the edge the voice demanded

No he said I might fall

Come to the edge the voice commanded

Reluctantly, I came to the edge

He pushed me off

And I flew.

Apollinaire

Mystical awakening is different from one individual to another. Your process of individual development will always be the very best one for you. This development is established through the action of higher consciousness itself acting through and as you. You must allow yourself the opportunity and not interfere with your awakening to your inner self. Using guidance from a particular teaching may be very helpful. However, to use spiritual principles in order to set your will on how your spiritual awakening is supposed to occur will greatly inhibit you and slow the process to an imperceptible crawl. It can cause a sense of hopelessness to arise. After all, we often hear that our lives will be made better if we would but only turn to Spirit. If we allow our wills to be in charge of the experience, our results will be less than satisfying.

However, while awakening comes to each person in a different manner, some stages of realization are nearly universal. These stages and signs recur again and again in the lives of awakening mystics. When you experience any of these stages you are absolutely fortunate. Your understanding of these signs will prove to be very helpful in providing you encouragement and validation of your personal awakening.

You have to be willing to see these signs. Interestingly, many people feel as if they are being gullible at first. Here is something you can expect whenever you set yourself on the road to change: resistance will immediately follow upon any resolve we make to be different than the ego perceives as the way things always were. Nothing wrong here, just another part of God finding out if we are really committed to what we say we mean to do! When you buy a home, they tell you the price. Doesn’t that information test whether or not you mean to have that particular home?

The same is true of the resistance that arises in response to spiritual change and inquiry. If you wish to awaken to the inner mystic within yourself, you will be tested by your self. Our responses to such testing let us know right away whether this was simply a good idea or a spiritually grounded commitment. Good ideas fall by the wayside. A true spiritual commitment finds a balance of persistence, and KNOWS that the way things used to be will try to claim you until you have replaced outmoded thinking with new spiritual ideas and commitments with the strength of the courage that is innate within you. This ability is your inner mystic acting as and through you in the moment! Awakening this powerful inner mystic is the answer to the admonition to “Know thyself and to thy own self be true.”

Part 2 tomorrow...

Being Ones Best

2005-09-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Rev. Jack Boland said: “Don’t let the good interfere with the better and don’t let the better interfere with the best. I am not all I could be and I am not all that I want to be, but thank God I am not what I used to be. How many times I have thanked God that I am not what I used to be.”

Rising

2005-09-21T14:55:00.001-07:00

"There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained."

W.E.B. DuBois

At Home in the World

2005-09-15T01:26:00.000-07:00

There was a child went forth every day
And the first object he looked upon, that object he became
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

Walt Whitman

Home has always had a lot of meaning for me. I changed schools 27 times before I dropped out of high school and ran off to Denver, Colorado, to hide out, and lie about my age until I turned 18 and could take charge of my own life. In all that moving around I came to identify 'home" as the place where my mother was. Clearly it wasn't the same house throughout my childhood, and it was my grandparents’ house a few times, and there were a few things that were usually there: a hide-a-bed sofa that we acquired when I was in third grade, wagon wheel bunk beds and my first desk. In high school I didn't have enough clothes to wear 5 different outfits during a week. I became pretty crafty at mixing things up to disguise this fact. Who wants anyone to know they are poor? Who wants to feel unstylish and poor?

Poor children often feel let down by the adults around them, parents, teachers and other authority figures alike. The condition of being poor seems to hang over everything, casting a shadow across who a child actually is, submerging their potential, their personal identity and anything they might hold dear or dream of being. Poor children are often moved around by the adults in their life without regard to any concerns or activities the children may have. I was in four foster homes during high school. One of them was good. This moving around is one of the ways that we teach these children that they are powerless. I learned this in a receiving home for foster children and in juvenile hall where I was sent when 'authorities' discovered that I had moved into a travel trailer and got a job at Baker's Burgers and Tacos when I was 16. Apparently that made me, legally, an incorrigible, so they locked me in a cell with a burglar with a drug habit for two months while it was being decided which stinking hole of a foster home they would send me to next. The next one was so foul smelling with sour unwashed diapers that after a few days I actually asked my probation officer to take me back to juvenile hall rather than stay there. At least it was clean. The next foster home thought I should be their new maid; I was the only one cleaning the house. It was from there that I ran away to Denver. I got a job, rented a basement apartment and laid low waiting for November 6th and my emancipation from the decisions of well meaning adults.

This year my husband and I bought a slightly neglected but wonderful new home in Bellingham, Washington, moving from our lives and jobs in California to shine up this jewel and claim it as our own. This week I baked a pie from green apples grown on a tree in our front yard and blackberries from the bramble across the street. What an amazing privilege it is to have observed the entire process of growth from the dormancy of the snowy winter to the harvest and preparation this week of a pie that met with delightful eating. One of the great pleasures of our new life has been gardening. We've been able to give away some of our gorgeous yellow zucchini, pick wild blackberries across the street and Italian flat green beans from a teepee of poles we made from small tree trunks we had cleared from the yard. We've had beautiful flowers to bring into the house and have painted, scrubbed, pressure washed, polished, refinished and installed what we could to make this place a home that reflects who we are, comforts us and calls us to be who we mean to be. Shelter has a great deal of meaning for both of us, Dan, as an architect has dedicated much of his professional life to designing homes, and home has been that place I have been living, and at the same time, getting to, all the years of my life. Now, I am at home in the world.

My friends would tell you that I have made the best of any place I have ever lived, made it beautiful, that my place always looks like 'home.' Yet none of those places have felt so much like home as this place where we now live together. We have a Joy here that we have never felt before. I am certain that this is truly because we have never before been who we are now. I know, that sounds terribly new age and trite in some way. Life has taken us through some deep challenges in the past few years, deaths of beloved family and dear friends, and an extended unemployment for Dan that truly threatened us financially. The shelter we have found here is precious to us and we treat it as a sacred place. It is as if this new home responds to our care with its own sense of belonging. We are so profoundly grateful for this feeling.

Ernest Holmes wrote: "The attitudes of praise and thanksgiving are salutary. They not only lighten the consciousness, lifting it out of sadness and depression; they elevate consciousness to a point of acceptance. Praise and thanksgiving are affirmations of the Divine Presence, the Divine abundance and the Divine givingness. It is only when we live affirmatively that we are happy. It is only when we recognize that the universe is built on affirmations that we can become happy."

I can't think of any time in my life when gratitude would be more useful than it is right now. Each day I see the amazing outstretch of hands to help, the wading into the suffering done by volunteers, the stories I hear about people loading up trucks with donations and driving to the Gulf Coast and I know that we are all at home in the world, living amongst friends, forgiving friends who keep moving into making the world a better place for everyone. As we forgive our mistakes and expend our energy in thanksgiving and care for those who suffer still, for those who continue to seek a new home, a return and repair of the home they left behind, we grow together in relationship and exploration of the innate connection of each individual to the whole of life itself. As I watch the images of those who give of themselves and their resources to those in need of those gifts, I am grateful for all of the giving and all of the receiving for this is the basis in Love that provides true Abundance. I believe we must continue giving until we have resolved the homelessness and poverty of those who are suffering today. Compassion is a daily choice. It is ours to create a world where everyone can experience for themselves the feeling of being at home in the world and affirm this Joy for every sentient being.

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."

Mohandas Gandhi

Please continue to give, to volunteer, to consciously practice Love in Action.

American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/

Mercy Corps http://www.mercycorps.org/

Habitat for Humanity: http://www.habitat.org/

HELP OTHERS for free just by clicking! http://www.quickdonations.com/

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"It is our duty - as men and women - to behave as though limits to our ability do not exist. We are co-creators of the Universe." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Emerson Online Studies Classes

SOM® 103: Building a Healing Consciousness, Begins Thursday, September 22

http://www.emersononlinestudies.org/Healing%20Consciousness.html

Class Times are 6:00-8:00 PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time

Course led by Dr. Susanne Freeborn.

mIRC or IRCLE chat software must be installed on your computer to attend these courses (www.mirc.com/ for PC; or www.ircle.com/ for Mac) You can register and pay through PayPal at www.EmersonOnlineStudies.org Instructions and addresses for the chat sessions are sent upon your registration by email.

Please email a request for these once you've mailed your registration, also downloadable on the website.

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The ONE campaign declares the following:

"WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty. WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs - education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans - would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget. WE COMMIT ourselves - one person, one voice, one vote at a time - to make a better, safer world for all."

Sign the declaration at: http://one.viewpoint.com/

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To receive Peace Principles delivered by email, write to Dr.Susanne@EmersonOnlineStudies.org with SUBSCRIBE-PEACE PRINCIPLES in the subject line.

PEACE PRINCIPLES BLOG @ http://peaceprinciples.blogspot.com/
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It is important for our spiritual development that we take a deep look at what we are giving and what we are receiving from Life itself. We encourage you to practice the art of giving by pledging or tithing. It's a way to demonstrate that yours is a mature spiritual understanding that appreciates the value of giving as the balance to receiving. If these messages are a part of what supports your spiritual path, then we invite you to give through our website, or by mail.

If you wish to contribute to my Internet ministry, or to help supply a scholarship to another, you can to go to

https://www.paypal.com/verified/pal=Dr.Susanne%40comcast.net to do so.

Your support is deeply appreciated.

The Recently Great City of New Orleans

2005-09-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember my name.
I don’t know my address.
Or remember how I used to leave home.
I can’t find my shoes.
The water is rising quickly.
Where are the stairs?
I think I am eighty-seven years old.
Can I crawl up on the roof?
Where is my medicine?
Is someone coming for me?
I try, but I can’t remember my name.
I remember Eloise, she was such a great dancer.
Does anyone remember me now?
I am alone, and I hear gunfire.
I shiver in the heat with fear.

Where are my shoes?
The shingles are rough,
and I find them slippery when wet.
I am blaring like a siren of fear
as the water laps against the eaves.
I see that the water is full of death.
I climb and climb to escape, my heart pounding.
The water climbs behind me.
Bearing down hard.
The life force in me is in a high-pitched whine,
working to survive, scratching through the attic roof
with anything I can find.
After I see my neighbor, in the window,
at the top of her house
screaming across the street,
Her eyes bulging with the fear of being trapped alone.
The same fear I feel stuck in my throat.
No one comes, no one comes, no one comes!
I am vigilantly watching for rescue, for help
I have no shoes and if I escape,
No home.

I am only seven years old
I can’t find my shoes
The water is rising quickly
Where is my mother?
Down the stairwell the living room is wet
The lampshades from her lamps idly floating by.
The street is full of water, getting higher
I climb up to the attic
As I pass the window by the stair I see that
A body floats by face down with a stick
strangely wedged between the arm and the torso.
The water is coming quickly.
Will it get me too?
Will it wash away my home?
couldn’t find my shoes or my sister
Too late, nothing to rescue
In a moment I became a refugee, shoeless
Without family, future changed, uncertain.

Where is Charlie, Marguerite, Gary, Peggy and Morris?

I break the glass, jump through, and I take the shoes.
Holding them overhead, keeping them dry
They signify my will to survive:
To walk out of here,
To live another day.
The barest thread of hope,
When no one comes.

Shots ring out and God is out there somewhere in the deep.
Drowning in the grim, polluted water, infected with waterborne disease,
Gasping, unattended, lost.
While reporters and theorists clamor for attention,
distributing their expensive opinions,
even as God drowns in the ruins
of the recently great City of New Orleans.

© Dr. Susanne Freeborn, September 3, 2005 @ 12:15 a.m.

Affirming Our Good

2005-04-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

“Unless we are engaged in spiritual and mental practice, we need not spend more than thirty minutes or an hour each day in meditation, but this amount of time is of inestimable value in our practical life; for it is here that we join the real to the ideal and receive inspiration for action and guidance toward accomplishment.”

“The greatest good which our mind is able to conceive should be affirmed as a part of our everyday experience. From such daily meditation, we should venture forth into a life of action with the will to do, the determination to be and a joy in becoming.”

Ernest Holmes
Can We Talk to God? (1934)

Living From the Center of One's Being

2005-04-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When we consciously connect with God, we touch joy, even in the midst of our most challenging experiences, because the One within us is ever joyful, capable of appreciation. Inside all of us, without exception, is a center of God's wisdom, power, grace, and love - and always, God's joy.

God is all around and inside us, greater than any circumstance that we may encounter. We can always make a choice for illumination and for joy. We do this simply by remembering God's presence.

Try this when you feel challenged: Take off your shoes, stand where you are and recognize that you are now, this very moment, standing on holy ground. Where ever you are is sacred! God is here. You are not now, nor will you ever be alone!

Life is always speaking to us and it is up to us to consciously pay attention to the subtle messages, before they become intense. Drama follows unconsciousness like a shadow on an otherwise sunny day.

In the end, Love always has its way with us. Let it be a joyful illumination within your soul, allow the light of Love within on those dark days when happiness feels far off. Allow the warmth to reach you, you will remember Love as what you truly are.

When I'm 85

2005-04-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

"I've often said to people that the way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine that you're lying in your coffin. Any posture you like [...]. Now look at your problems from that view-point. Changes everything, doesn't it ?"

Anthony De Mello

For me, when facing a problem or a decision, I have always thought of what my opinion might be when I am 85 looking back on the way I act right now. How will I remember myself? Will I respect the decisions I made? Do my decisions in the present honor the kind of old woman I intend to be? Can that 85 year old Susanne clue me in?

The Parable of the Precious Stone

2005-03-31T12:58:00.000-08:00

“Treat people as if they were what they must be, and you'll help them to become what they are capable of becoming."

Goethe

Here is a parable that illustrates Goethe's remarks:

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream.

The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation.

The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."

Once again, here are two ideas that appear to work together. Sometimes in giving people what they ask us for, the experience of such generosity awakens in them the dawning experience of knowing the Divine within: the recognition that there is something more than simply the gifts of the material world.

Wisdom from the Dóré Lectures

2005-03-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

"If we would bring a new order of Life, Light, and Liberty into our lives we must commence by bringing a new order into our thought, not by the force of personal will, but by union with the Divine Spirit, which in the expression of its inherent love and beauty, makes all things new."

Thomas Troward
The Dóré Lectures on Mental Science

The ultimate purpose of Science of Mind is conscious union with God. Meister Eckhart said, “Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds grow into nut trees and man grows into God.”

Ernest Holmes writes in The Science of Mind:

"We came from Life and are in Life, so we are One with Life; and we know that Instinctive Life within -- which has brought us to the point of self-recognition -- still knows in us the reason for all things, the purpose underlying all things; and we know that there is nothing in us of fear, doubt, or confusion which can hinder the flow of Reality to the point of our recognition. We are guided daily by Divine Intelligence into paths of peace, wherein the soul recognizes its Source and meets It in joyful union, in complete At-One-ment."

Affirmation: I daily immerse myself in God and see God in each and everything I do.

Peace of Mind Syndrome

2005-03-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

"To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders."

Lao-Tzu

PEACE OF MIND SYNDROME

Most of our minds are so clouded or disturbed with disruptive thinking, we would not recognize peace of mind were to it occur. Have you ever rediscovered a clear lake in the early morning? The surface is so still, it perfectly reflects the trees, clouds and sky around it. You can see the rocks clearly resting on the bottom. The lake is in its natural, pristine state. Unclouded and accurately reflecting the image of the world.

Later in the day, if you were to return to that same lake, it might not be so serene and reflective. Wind, boats and swimmers are disturbing the surface and distorting what is reflected. Silt floats in the water, clouding it and making it impossible to see the bottom.

Our minds are very much like the lake. When they are still, they are more accurately reflective of reality. When they are not clouded, we are able to "see" the depths of our own awareness. But most of the time, our minds are disturbed with activities of daily living which disrupt the clarity of our awareness of reality. They are filled with emotional disruption which clouds our perceptions. Most of us would not recognize "peace of mind" if it were to suddenly occur. What are some of the characteristics of a peaceful mind? How would we function if we were afflicted with the "peace-of-mind syndrome?" Here are some symptoms. You fall asleep easily, remain asleep deeply, and awaken refreshed and feeling good. Your sleep is punctuated with pleasant dreams. You arise filled with enthusiasm for living another day.

You experience a deep sense of belonging. You belong to all living things...to all of Life.

You are loved by all those with whom you come in contact. People love your energy, your feelings, your thoughts and your way of being in the world. Your face is alive and radiant.

You have a distinct tendency to behave based on your immediate experience. You are oriented to the present moment, not on your history or anticipated future. You enjoy each moment. Your capacity for experiencing this joy is large.

You lose all interest in judging yourself or others. Self-criticism ceases, replaced by self-love, self-respect and consideration of your well-being first. Then you consider others with that same love and respect. You fail to take an interest in promoting conflict, participating in competition, or viewing differences as bad or wrong. You cease worrying about events which have not occurred. And once events occur, you immediately recognize them as history and therefore not subject to change. You are plagued by regular episodes of appreciation and awareness of the positive events in your life. You are stuck in a keen sense of curiosity and delight at new learnings. You experience chronic contentment. A differential-diagnostic sign of inner peace.

Finally, you share your symptoms with everyone else. Peace-of-mind syndrome is highly contagious. You spread its symptoms, splashing its benefits around without discrimination.

If you have difficulty catching this syndrome, remember the lake. Like it, peace of mind is your natural, pristine state. Rediscover it, and the syndrome is yours.

Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D.

Releasing Againstness

2005-03-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

No matter how difficult what we face in life may be, we cannot improve upon our own condition by expressing "againstness" or by declaring others "wrong" when they do not agree with us. None of us here has an exclusive hold on Truth. We are each doing the best that we can in our own lives. We have significant spiritual practices to use here, to relieve our own suffering and to straighten out our own thinking, and thereby return ourselves to the relationship with the whole of creation that God is. I ask that we all pray about this and hold our silence until we know that the words we can speak are words of Love.

God is all there is! We have all been talking about things that are very difficult in our lives. When we talk about difficult things, race mind will supply similarities between what is actually being said and things that we already know or have experienced in the past. These "ideas" that are supplied by race mind were not a part of the speaking or writing of another, but are a part of how we respond through our own point of view and experience. Please look within your own consciousness and reconsider the meaning you might have ascribed to another. Some of what is said at times is expressing deep pain, and it has been in some cases, left unaddressed, unapproached by Love. All of us miss these opportunities to express Love sometimes. This is how miscommunication unfolds. There is something in this for each of us to learn and grow in Love by. I am asking that you take the time to do this now.

In The Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes says on page 431,

"We are told that God will forgive us after we have forgiven others. This is a direct statement and one that we should ponder deeply. Can God forgive until we have forgiven? If God can work for us only by working through us, then this statement of Jesus stands true, and is really a statement of the law of cause and effect. We cannot afford to hold personal animosities or enmities against the world or individual members of society. All such thoughts are outside the law and cannot be taken into the heavenly consciousness. Love alone can beget love. People do not gather roses from thistles."

Later on he relies upon Jesus words...

"...Jesus clearly explains the meaning of divine forgiveness. He says that we should forgive seventy times seven. This is but another way of saying that forgiveness is eternal and ever available. What a load is dropped from the shoulders of personal responsibility, when we realize that the Eternal Mind holds naught against anyone!"

Choosing to be hurt in our own feelings, to declare oneself a victim, or to be offended are possible responses or choices of interpretation, but these come out of an infinite field of choices. The cost of choosing offense is that in choosing offense we distance ourselves from Love and all the benefits of living in a relationship of Love with all of life. All of us do this sometimes. More importantly, how fast do we return to Love within ourselves? "Everything moves in circles. This is the way of life, and what we refuse to give we refuse to accept. Nothing is more important than we learn how to forgive both ourselves and others."

We can ask questions rather than assume we understand. If we think about what we have read or heard and say to ourselves, "I know this is an expression of Love, how might I clear up my understanding so that I get the Love as it is intended?"

"If we hold a grudge, we bar ourselves from the highest expression of our divine nature. God never hates, nor does God hold feelings of bitterness toward any person. Thus the grudgeholder is trying to express God and something else, which is impossible. Spirit is not cut up into little sections. No one can say, “I will accept God’s healing but not express God’s love.” Since Spirit is indivisible, the person who refrains from expressing God’s love will be unable to accept God’s health. Therefore, we should express love, for love is the fulfilling of the law."

Let us all forgive ourselves and one another for the chance that we may have caused one another or ourselves any pain at all.

Road Maps for the Soul

2005-03-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

"Buddha left a road map, Jesus left a road map, Krishna left a road map, Rand McNally left a road map. But you still have to travel the road yourself."

Stephen Levine

CONSIDER THIS:

Who left you a road map? Are you using it? Does your road map read more like a labyrinth, a rabbit warren, a tangle? Is your life's purpose a powerful part of your travel guide? What else is contained in your travel guide?

Does thinking about this inspire you to any kind of action? Please, share what you are inspired to do, or be with us.

Teach Me Thyself

2005-03-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Franklin said this prayer every day:

"O Powerful Goodness, Bountiful Father, Merciful Guide, Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Father of Light and Life, Thou Good Supreme, teach me what is good. Teach me Thyself. Save me from folly, vanity, vice, from every low pursuit. Fill my soul with knowledge, conscious peace, virtue pure, sacred, substantial, never-fading perseverance."

And here are a a few of his wise words:

"I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody."

"Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all."

"Never confuse motion with action."

Expanding the Field of Love

2005-03-22T12:41:00.000-08:00

"What we think is less than what we know; What we know is less than what we love; What we love is so much less than what there is. And to that precise extent we are so much less than what we are."

R.D. Laing
The Politics of Experience

Does it seem that we are being told here that to expand the field of Love is to be more of what we innately are?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

2005-03-21T20:01:00.000-08:00

"Peace comes within the souls of people when they realize their oneness with the universe."

Black Elk

"Healing does not mean to return to the past condition of health but the willingness to be led closer to God by the present condition."

Ram Dass
Still Here

Every morning it is my practice to seek to be inspired, and then keying off that inspiration to write the Peace Principle for the day. Sometimes that inspiration arises because I will juxtapose two quotations such as those above and see what the wisdom of each can say when considered together. Will insight arise between the two? In this case, Ram Dass wrote this book after having experienced a stroke and he describes the realization he had about healing being the state where we stand in "what is" in our lives without resistence. This is a kind of surrender. Sometimes we are so busy wanting life to make things the way they used to be, or like something or somebody else, that we completely fail to experience the wisdom and beauty of the present, just as it is and just as it is not.

When I was a beautiful young woman, I didn't understand or appreciate my physical beauty at all. I saw only the imperfections and measured myself against a public perception of beauty that was somewhat different than myself. I participated, by my own choice, in robbing myself of a part of the enthusiasm of being myself just as I am. I did not revel in the amazing coordination and grace that was innate in my body. I didn't test my strength or endurance such that I would understand what my body really could do. I kept my distance from that which didn't seem to measure up and worked on cosmetically altering myself so that my reflection "corrected" my perception of myself.

When we measure ourselves against anything exterior to ourselves, we take a large measure out of that within us which experiences authentic Joy and put that energy into being right. Being right robbed me of the experience of youthful beauty, such beauty is a heavenly gift indeed. I could only see it retrospectively in photographs and had no internal experience. Now I experience beauty throughout all of life and I see it in the mirror with a few decades added. I am grateful that I woke up. If there is beauty throughout all of life that beauty must also be inside of each us as well.

Where are you measuring yourself against something you once were, wish you could be, or saw in another? How much of a gift might you give yourself in developing enthusiasm for what is, right here, right now? Can you look in the mirror and see your own beauty and connection to all of life? Can you love the way it is?

Dr. S on her tricycle

Dissolving the "Difficulty" of Change

2005-03-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

A good many people have written to me in the past few years about how difficult changing our personal experience can be. I want to share this inspiration with you from Ernest Holmes in the book published in 2001 entitled "Love and Law:"

"I notice this, that it is not to the sentimental ones who gush and gush, that big results come, it is to those who think deeply and simply and pertinently and persistently, and then, because they know. In what they believe, they know they will get a perfect result. This is the sum and substance of the whole thing, for you can then approach the Infinite Mind with a depth of understanding and thought, with a realization that you are dealing with reality, with a tremendous reverence that so far transcends the orthodox idea of prayer that you can compare them only as you can compare this planet with a mole hill."

This sums up how I have gone about changing my life and I recommend it to you. Things have been extraordinarily difficult for me at times in my life, but I would not give up on my dreams for the kind of life that I wanted to live. I knew it was possible to have the kind of life that I have now and I know that it is possible for you as well. I recommend that you keep getting yourself inspired. Naysayers are many, but what stake do they have in your happiness or in your life's success? No matter how tough things might be, and I know personally about this, if you won't give up on your life, you will get results. Whatever we most fervently believe will come to us! The idea of how long something takes, or how much effort or difficulty must be encountered, is simply another form of nay saying if we let us stop us.

For many years I watched a wonderful man named Pierre Delfausse run marathons on the Central Coast of California. When I met him he was well into his 70's and he could run over 26 miles! I saw him beat my 50 something husband in a 10 K race later that year. Once, my husband, Dan, saw a man finish a race at the same pace it took an eight year old boy to finish the same race -- they crossed the finish line together holding hands. Imagine sticking to something that long! An eight-year-old can and so can an old codger! My husband Dan finished a marathon once in 4 hours and 52 minutes. Imagine running that long and staying committed to it. I've often imagined my amazing and strong husband crossing the finish line when something is taking me a little longer than I like. It got me through four years of law school, while holding down a demanding job because I know, and I knew then, that I can choose to be patient and persistent in the face of being a bit tired, disinterested or distracted! I can bring my attention and my knowledge to bear on whatever is pertinent when I need to do so to succeed. Keeping the goal in mind and the knowledge that there really is only God, in me, as me, working always through me, I continue being headed in the direction of my commitments, my calling, and my deepest dreams with persistence, and a depth of character that comes of knowing only God. Our divine nature is our character. Finding and accepting your divinity dissolves the "difficulty" of change.

Courage, Be Not Afraid for God is Life!

2005-03-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

"God is Life; not some life but all Life. God is Action; not some action but all Action. God is Power; not some power but all Power. God is Presence; not some presence but all Presence. God is pure Spirit, filling all space."

"Humankind does not face an eternal struggle against some external force that desires our downfall. The only struggle, the only battle, the only thing that needs to be overcome is our own ignorance, our own lack of awareness and recognition of the beneficent Power and creativity that is the source of all things. And we should never doubt the validity of our own considered judgment in such matters. There are no prophets other than the wise. Amidst the din and uproar of our lives, the accumulated fear, doubt, and confusion of the ages, there has always been and always will be a still, small, voice within that seeks to proclaim itself through us. Life has given us all we could ever desire. It is up to us to decide and discover for ourselves what the nature of life is, and accept it."

Ernest Holmes
This Thing Called Life

Continued Practice:

Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," if you feel any form of fear rising within yourself today.

"Be not afraid," if you feel angry today. Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," if you feel frustrated today. Let go of the idea that "Life is not going the way I want it to go, dammit!" Be not afraid and know that life is indeed going your way. There is nothing wrong here. Difficulty is simply one kind of sign pointing to our growth in Spirit! Courage is a personal choice that you can make right here, right now! Such courage allows one to see beyond ones fears and concerns to the innate divinity in all of life.

Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," whenever you feel something other than perfect Peace, Love, Beauty, Intelligence and Harmony in your heart today. As Holmes said, "God is pure Spirit, filling all space." Every inch of who and what you are is also Spirit. As a sign next to my door says "There is no spot where God is not!" Be still and know that thou art God! Divinity is innate in all of life including, and especially, within YOU. We may not be all that God is, yet we are all God, all the time. We are integral to that which God is.

Courage

2005-03-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things."

Amelia Earhart Putnam

The first woman to fly across the Atlantic, in 1928
The second person to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1932
The first person to solo from Hawaii to California, in 1935

Continued Practice:

Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," if you feel any form of fear rising within yourself today.

"Be not afraid," if you feel angry today. Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," if you feel frustrated today. Let go of the idea that "Life is not going the way I want it to go, dammit!" Be not afraid and know that life is indeed going your way. There is nothing wrong here. Difficulty is simply one kind of sign pointing to our growth in Spirit! Courage is a personal choice that you can make right here, right now!

Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," whenever you feel something other than perfect Peace, Love, Beauty, Intelligence and Harmony in your heart today.

Dealing With Fear

2005-03-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

"When we are in fear, we focus all our attention on the point of danger and lose our capacity to find any courage, sanity, or peace within ourselves.... Perhaps this is why, in the Christian New Testament, the phrase "be not afraid" is found more than three hundred times."

Wayne Muller
Legacy of the Heart

Practice:

Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," if you feel any form of fear rising within yourself today.

"Be not afraid," if you feel angry today. Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," if you feel frustrated today. Let go of the idea that "Life is not going the way I want it to go, dammit!" Be not afraid and know that life is indeed going your way. There is nothing wrong here. Difficulty is simply one kind of sign pointing to our growth in Spirit!

Repeat the phrase, "Be not afraid," whenever you feel something other than perfect Peace, Love, Beauty, Intelligence and Harmony in your heart today.

Another Way of Seeing

2005-03-15T12:09:00.000-08:00

from the teachings of Sufism:

"NOBODY APPEARS INFERIOR TO US WHEN OUR HEART IS KINDLED WITH KINDNESS AND OUR EYES ARE OPEN TO THE VISION OF GOD."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:

"Inferior and superior are qualities connected with dualism. Heart knows only oneness, and therefore heart does not understand distinctions into grades. The sun looks upon the earth -- not upon the hills and mountains and valleys and oceans. From a certain point of view these things exist; from another point of view they cannot be perceived. So it is with the outlook of the heart; when it sees God, it perceives all in the light and this of itself brings to fruition kindness, compassion and all heart qualities."

For more about Sufism and Dances of Universal Peace, see

http://www.sufimovement.org/khan.htm

and

http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org

Being an Eye, II

2005-03-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake."

Victor Hugo

"I am blind and do not see the things of this world; but when the Light comes from Above, it enlightens my heart and I can see, for the Eye of my heart sees everything. The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye. This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which He sees all things, and through which we see Him...In order to know the center of the heart where the Great Spirit dwells you must be pure and good, and live in the manner that the Great Spirit taught us. The man who is thus pure contains the Universe in the pocket of his heart."

Black Elk, traditional Oglala Lakota, published in Yellowtail: Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991

Being an Eye

2005-03-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

"Awareness requires the interplay of every faculty, the use of your entire being as an eye."

Charles A. Lindbergh

No wonder Lindbergh managed to fly across the Atlantic in that little plane!

An Able Heart

2005-03-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

My heart has become able
To take on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
For monks, an abbey.

It is a temple for idols
And for whoever circumambulates it,
The Kaaba.
It is the tablets of the Torah
And also the leaves of the Koran!

Perfect Harmony, Sufi Poetry of Ibn 'Arabi

Can you picture today, in a difficult moment, making space in your heart for the object or person central to the difficulty, such that your heart is a pasture for the gazelle where instead of being perceived as a dark hole of difficulty, it can be be fully recognized, appreciated and accepted in its wholeness? Can you create for one moment an able heart?

Growing Good Corn

2005-03-09T11:24:00.000-08:00

"In the long run everyone who loves is loved. All who give joy receive it back. Everything moves in circles, in cycles of cause and effect. More is added to the much we use. When we refuse to use our gifts they shrivel up. The divine flow is short-circuited. The one who gives for the joy of giving will receive back even more joy that he gave out. Ever as the volume increases the circle will increase. There can be no point of saturation in that which is infinite."

Ernest Holmes, Words That Heal Today

James Bender, in his book, How to Talk Well (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1994), relates the story of a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?", the reporter asked.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.

So it is in other dimensions. Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbors to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn.

Diving Into Service

2005-03-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

When I lost my mother in January 2000 I had to keep teaching, I had no one capable of replacing me at that time. It was very difficult for me, even after all the years of Religious Science training and all the additional studying I had done of Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and the pile of transformational course work I had done with Landmark Education.

However, I was able to go on one day at a time and things did get easier. Help arrived in the form of good friends like Lori and my sister Sharon. And I was fortunate, I had nothing to feel any guilt about in my relationship with my mother. Still, guilt, anger, sorrow, silliness all bubbled up at inconvenient times. All of these make up a group of volunteer feelings free-floating in the collective consciousness of the One Mind, and when we are feeling vulnerable they comes to play in our consciousness looking for work like job applicants. It took some time to figure out which feelings were "mine" to employ and which were extraneous volunteers. The thing about "volunteers" is that they are only as useful as our need for them. When something as dramatic as the death of a parent or the loss of a job or someone close happens, a whole committee of feelings may very well begin volunteering for service. Some of them are so compelling that it is easy and natural to forget that we are the "employer" and we can mistakenly begin to accept that these are actually "our" feelings. In our modern culture there are so many ideas and images of what we are meant to be like when the challenges of living arrive on our doorstep, still, the divinity within us knows what part is ours and what part has something to do with the consciousness of the world.

I missed my Mom and I still miss my Mom. Yes, I know she is always with me. I had gotten up every day for 4 1/2 years to make my "hop-along" Mom breakfast. She had become my reason for getting up! The idea that it was "Time to make Mom breakfast!" would shoot me foggy and stumbling up the stairs to the kitchen when I would have otherwise continued to sleep. I would sleepily arrive in the kitchen and get out her medications and vitamins, make her a cup of coffee and something to eat and wake my self up to do the "Mutt mom and Mutt cat dance" around the kitchen, until the cat was meowing and Mom was laughing so hard she was about to spill her coffee. I had to find a new reason to get me up. My meditations and prayers came after I took care of Mom and Emma the cat. Was I going to get up and go straight into meditation? That put me to sleep. I am not that "good" a minister. I don't wake up enough simply by opening my eyes.

Note to self: remember that all, including yourself, is divine. In New Thought we often paraphrase something Ernest Holmes taught: "God in me, as me, is me."

Before long it occurred to me that what I had done was substitute this activity for what really gets me up: being of service. I know I was being of service to my mother, but I had forgotten the genesis of that service! There isn't anything that I do that is not about service. For many, many years I have had the following quotation on the wall next to my desk:

"I don't know what your destiny will be. But one thing I do know: those among you who will be happy will be those who have sought and found how to serve."

Albert Schweitzer

I am no Albert Schweitzer, but turning my attention to how I can serve sent many "volunteer feelings" packing. Again, compassion arose, both for those whom I serve, and for myself. Diving back into service got me through the death of my mother and centered me, once again, in who I know myself to be. When you know who you are, getting up, and "waking up," is natural, and if when you are challenged and you feel groggy or slow to come around, hey, you have been through a difficult challenge and there is no rush in adjusting to change. You can do it one service at a time when you include yourself in those whom you serve.

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

Mohandas K. Gandhi

God blesses us always and in all ways,

Love, Susanne

P.S. - Emma the Cat aka Mutt Cat and I still have our morning chats in the kitchen.

The Direct Path

2005-03-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

"A great Christian visionary, Hildegard of Bingen, summed up the highest and most challenging wisdom of all the mystical traditions when she wrote; "Humanity, full of creative possibilities, is God's work. Humanity is called on to assist God. Humanity is called to co-create with God." This call to "co-create" with God a new future is the central, and glorious, challenge of our time and of the Direct Path. It involves, and demands, great sincerity, passion, humility, and discipline; its potential is as boundless as divine love itself.

.

As the great modern Sufi mystic Iqbal wrote:

Who can tell what miracles
Love has in store for us
If only we have the courage
To become one with It?
Everything we think we know now
Is only the beginning
Of another knowing that itself has no end.
And everything we now can accomplish
Will seem derisory to us
When the powers of our divine nature
Flower in glory and act through us."

Andrew Harvey, The Direct Path

When Good People Gossip

2005-03-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

"I have no responsibility except to create the right kind of a mental receptivity. That is the truth. Thus we, who are seeking to demonstrate, we know that all we have got to do is to realize the truth, that is, use the mind in a positive formative way and the Mind, or the power which creates everything and projects it, will do the rest for us. Until we come to the point where we see that this is all we have to do, it is all thought; no matter how hard we struggle, we could not do anything else. All we have to do is to take up the attitude of the expectant receiver, realizing we are scientifically using the law."

Ernest Holmes, Love and Law

In the past few days, I have been thinking about the negative side of gossip, so of course, I began to run right into it! Most of the time we think gossip is harmless, and I suppose it can be, if it is simply a few facts about our favorite celebrity. That's what TV shows like Entertainment Tonight and Extra broadcast to us almost daily. But what about the kind that affects somebody who isn't necessarily in the public eye, somebody who isn't "in the loop" of a conversation we are having, whether it be in writing or in speech? What does it tell us about ourselves and about our values? Ernest Holmes wrote somewhere once that "This is the attitude we should assume, that life holds nothing against us. It desires only our good; it wants us to be well, happy, and successful, but it wants us to play the game of life the way it is supposed to be played -- in unity and cooperation with others."

If life desires only our good and holds nothing against us, to be in harmony with life we can want nothing less for anyone else. When we gossip, might it not be better for us instead to examine our own desires for what we want, intentionally focusing on that which we desire most, and then to know the Truth of what we really want, rather than to say something doubtful or negative about someone else?

Merriam - Webster Dictionary Online defines "gossip" this way:

Main Entry: 1 gos·sip
Pronunciation: 'gä-s&p
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English gossib, from Old English godsibb, from god god + sibb kinsman, from sibb related -- more at SIB 1 a dialect British : GODPARENT b : COMPANION, CRONY c : a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others 2 a : rumor or report of an intimate nature b : a chatty talk c : the subject matter of gossip

In a story by ABC News from 2001, it was reported that

"Gossip gives us information on how to better interact with other people," says Frank McAndrew, professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. "When we read something about how someone has acted or hear about how someone has acted then we hear the opinions people have of that action." ...

"Good gossip keeps people in line," says McAndrew. "If people are talking about good things others do, we want to emulate that good behavior. It's a nice way of socially controlling people."

On the other hand, bad gossip is used to "destroy someone's reputation and that's why we have so many mixed feelings about gossip," McAndrew says."

This seems to point to the alleged existence of "good gossip" and "bad gossip." I don't buy it. The source of Truth is within us, not in our peers, and not in those we perceive as superior to us in some hierarchical way, nor is the Truth within those whom we might like to have agree with us. Seeking validation for our opinions does not make them true. Stacking facts to back up the basis of our gossiping will not change the nature of the wrong we have done to another. It might make us feel emotionally supported if someone will agree with us, but it will not be a measure of Truth. Whatever anyone else has to say about any situation, a higher Truth is ever available within our own individual access to consciousness. Better that we should consult this inner wisdom than resort to adopting the opinions of others.

We might find it useful to ask ourselves, "What reverence do we hold for the innate and divine wisdom to which we have been given access?" How often do we commune with the source of our being? How often do we listen to the whisperings of our soul? What is in our hearts that would have us speak of less than the perfection within the heart of another. Another word for this divine wisdom is intuition. Albert Einstein seem to have a similar regard for this inner source of wisdom, since he said "The only real valuable thing is intuition." When we are uncomfortable with what someone else says or does, our inner wisdom is crying out to express through us! If we would but listen to that wisdom rather than the disappointment, frustration, or other emotions which encourage us to gossip, we would be moving towards the fulfillment of our desires and avoiding saying things that we might regret later. If you can't think of something good to say, as that famous mime, Marcel Marceau once said: "It's good to shut up sometimes."

Maya Angelou says "One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." Giving up gossiping is an opportunity to be a person of this caliber of courage!

If we do not see in another the measure of some skill or attribute we would like to see, let us focus on that which we desire to magnify and the clear and concise measure of realization of our deepest hopes. We can contemplate that which would make it real and leave off judgments of others. We can act "as if" it is so until life follows our lead! No one requires our criticism, nor does the fulfillment of our desires come about through negative channels. Sometimes we might have to say 'no" to those who would gossip about others in our presence, but let us not spread the venom of gossip either by listening or by speaking. Being for something has all the power and being against anything simply sucks the life's breath from our deepest desires. It is the law of attraction showing its mechanical nature to us.

When we expect good, good has no choice but to show up.

The Demonstration of Compassion

2005-03-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

"It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man."

Albert Schweitzer

"We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from us but one thing: the last of our freedoms – the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."

Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Somewhere in these words by these two men whom I have admired so long as I have known of them, is the truth about compassion. At least in one sense, compassion is the love we express in the face of life's challenges; it reaches for understanding when it seems we have nothing left within us, only to find that we have allowed Spirit to express through and as us yet again. When we open to compassion we open to the elevation of all that is sacred in life itself.

When I was a teenager my family was in a continuing crisis of poverty, abuse and violence. It was during those times that simple, small gestures made by people who inhabited the fringes of my life served to affirm my innate divinity, character and intelligence. When I look back on those years I can see that just enough encouragement came my way and kept me from giving up on the potential my life still held. The circumstances were very difficult. I remember eating nothing but corn meal mush for two long months during my sophomore year of high school. I remember a pervading mood of overarching sorrow and terrible secrets. I hid this from everyone because the last thing I wanted was to be seen as different from the other kids, especially, I didn't want to be somebody else's tragedy. I didn't talk about the beatings, the sexual abuse I had suffered, or the unending insults and fighting in my family. Things were hard. We were evicted from our home time and time again. But someone would hand me a book, say something encouraging to me at school, or say something that was so frustratingly lacking in understanding that I would get mad enough to persevere just to show them that they were wrong. In one way or another, I had the attitude I needed to survive the difficulties and to see the precious potential of my life, and I did not give up.

There were a very small number of people who demonstrated genuine compassion for me in those days. And that little was enough. Think about what kindness you can spread around today. For someone, you will say or do something that they will remember many years later with the deepest gratitude and life itself will be uplifted on the crest of your generosity of spirit. There is a developing arc of transformative power that follows all acts of compassion and generosity and you are the instrument of that transformation now.

God Seed

2005-03-04T11:52:00.000-08:00

"The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God."

Meister Eckhart

"Persons who have made up their mind to succeed should not overlook small things. Following a canyon road may lead to a great mesa, following a narrow path often leads to broad fields, and following a stream to its outlet in a great river leads on to the ocean. Little things which seem unimportant in themselves, persistently followed, lead to great accomplishment.

Great oaks start in small acorns. There must be a seed before there is a plant. There must be an idea before there is a form. There must be determination before there is accomplishment, and there must be a good-natured flexibility in one’s willingness to follow the little through to the big. We do not start at the top, but climb the ladder of life from the first rung. This law of evolution or unfoldment is in all nature."

Ernest Holmes

To know oneself and evolve as the God-seed that is the genesis of your truest self, that is otherwise known as self-expression! Become fluent in expressing your most authentic nature. Express yourself!

An Avalanche of Gratitude

2005-03-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

"The attitudes of praise and thanksgiving are salutary. They not only lighten the consciousness, lifting it out of sadness and depression; they elevate consciousness to a point of acceptance. Praise and thanksgiving are affirmations of the Divine Presence, the Divine abundance and the Divine givingness. It is only when we live affirmatively that we are happy. It is only when we recognize that the universe is built on affirmations that we can become happy."
Ernest Holmes

"Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside. No matter what's going on outside of us, there's always something we could be grateful for. "
Barry Neil Kaufman

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."
Albert Schweitzer

Gratitude is heaven itself."
William Blake

"A thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining soul complains even if he lives in paradise."
Baha'u'llah

"If the only prayer you say in your life is "thank you," that would suffice."
Meister Eckhart

"(Some people) have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy."
A.H. Maslow

"Find the good -- and praise it."
Alex Haley

"Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot."
The Hausa of Nigeria

"They are not poor that have little, but they that desire much. The richest man, whatever his lot, is the one who's content with his lot"
Dutch Proverb

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
Melody Beattie

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
Marcel Proust

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others."
Cicero

"Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart."
Seneca

"Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for. The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives."
Terry Lynn Taylor

"Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted--a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul."
Rabbi Harold Kushner

"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul."
Henry Ward Beecher

"What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it--would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have."
Ralph Marston

"Our thoughts of gratitude, thanksgiving, and recognition should ever go up to the Divine Presence. Like the wise men of old, we too need to be guided by the star of life to that holy place within us where the little child we are -- the Child of God -- is cradled in the arms of infinite love and wisdom."
Ernest Holmes

The Parable of the Salt

2005-03-02T05:45:00.000-08:00

An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

"How does it taste?" the master asked.

"Bitter," spit the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?"

"Fresh," remarked the apprentice.

"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master.

"No," said the young man.

At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same—exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things ....Stop being a glass. Become a lake."

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Thank you for being a lake!

Lessons from the Geese

2005-03-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

1. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an "uplift" for the bird following. By flying in "V" formation, the whole flock adds 71% to the flying range than if each bird flew alone.

LESSON: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and more easily because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

2. Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the "lifting power" of the bird immediately in front.

LESSON: If we have as much sense as the goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go.

3. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.

LESSON: It pays to take turns. doing the hard tasks, and sharing leadership. With people, as with geese, it pays to be interdependent with each other.

4. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

LESSON: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging - not something less helpful.

5. When a goose gets sick or wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow him down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly again or dies. Then they launch out on their own to join another formation or rejoin their own flock.

LESSON: If we have as much sense as the geese we'll stand by each other like that.

In Harmony With the Divine

2005-02-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

"The Divine Mind does not necessarily contain a mental blueprint of everything the individual is going to do. It does, however, contain the possibility of all individual action. When anyone conceives a new idea, thinks up a new plan for procedure, which is in accord with the Divine Nature, then God Himself is going forth anew into creation through that individual. And that person may, and should, expect that all the power and all the presence there is will creatively flow through his individual word because he has complied with the fundamental law of harmony governing all life."

Ernest Holmes
How to Use the Science of Mind

We don't know what we are going to do all the time, do we? Why shouldn't the full expression of our being include some tremendous surprises? Dr. Holmes is telling us here that it is in the nature of God to allow for us to create something completely new. A new way of thinking, an invention, a new possibility for how we shall live together! We don't have to act out of the same cookie cutter mental models that are given to us by "others," including our families of origin, our early teachers or by some universally accepted "BS!" Belief Systems are like weather, which we all know comes and goes. Weather may be a fact of life, but the specifics change moment to moment. Sometimes you may need a "mental umbrella" to protect you from the rain of negative ideas until they pass. My favorite "mental umbrella" is something I sing as a chant to myself and it comes from a song by Karen Drucker:

"I am so blessed,
I am so grateful for all that I have.

I am so blessed.
I am so blessed,
I am so grateful,
I am so blessed.

I am so blessed.
I am so blessed,
I am so grateful for all that I have.
I am so blessed.
I am so blessed,
I am so grateful,
I am so blessed."

[You can hear Karen Drucker's recording of "I am so Blessed" at http://www.karendrucker.com/kdpages/recording.html, where you can also purchase it on CD.]

When I center myself in the energy of recognition and gratitude for the blessings of my life, I am fully empowered to stand in the creative flow and direct it for good.

Constructive Joy

2005-02-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

"Back of all desire is the impulse of Spirit to express. In man, this impulse must express at the level of his consciousness:

"For each, for the joy of the working and each in his separate star, Shall paint the thing as he sees It for the God of things as they are."

Some express constructively and some destructively."

Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind (1926 Ed.)

"laughter is not just an internal exercise for someone lying flat on their back - a form of jogging for the innards - bit it creates a mood in which the other positive emotions can be put to work, too. In short, it helps make it possible for good things to happen."

Norman Cousins

Today I find a way to experience the humor of my circumstances and to laugh! My divinity is deeper than any sorrow, deeper than any circumstance I might face, my ability to know Joy is not contingent on these, but instead, includes them in the infinite landscape of my being. Inwardly and outwardly, I know Joy at the source of who I am. I find strength and healing in my laughter and creativity in responding to life arises from the wellspring of my willingness to embody Joy. Spirit reveals to me that I AM the Joy of Divine Laughter today.

Courage

2005-02-26T03:10:00.000-08:00

"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising, which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Pearl of Great Price

2005-02-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

"The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a pearl of great price for which a man will sell all that he has, that he may possess it. This, perhaps, best explains the way of the illumined. To them, the kingdom of heaven has meant everything, and has been above all else. We find them going away by themselves that they may more completely enjoy this inner realization of their relationship to the Whole. A divine companionship has ever attended such, on the pathway to human experience. The description of the things they have seen, felt and heard, constitutes some of the most valuable lessons the world has ever learned."

Ernest Holmes
The Science of Mind, p. 452

Discovering that which is at the center of your being, the beauty, love, and intelligence; the sheer perfection that is what we truly are, what you are, what I am, then we will naturally release fear and doubt and all of their "disguised children" from dominating our lives. We will release these states from our thinking, from our emotional and psychological lives turning to Spirit within us, to the pearl that is Spirit.

It's said that the word “Pearl” stands for purity and perfection. When we discover the purity and perfection at the center of our own being, we shall unsurprisingly get rid of the dreck in which we have been mired and center our lives and our attention on what is truly glorious about being alive. It’s a kind of Spring cleaning for the soul! That done, we begin to recognize this quality of Spirit throughout all of life. God is all there is. Spirit is in everything. Slow down and see what is beautiful around you, in that which you have failed to notice before. Find the kindness in others. See their generosity.

And if those disguised children of fear and doubt knock on your door from time to time, remember that you can release them once again. The groundless fears and doubts we have allowed to dominate our lives will tend to revisit us until we turn them away with sufficient conviction that we truly transform ourselves from shadows of our true nature into souls that are inhospitable to the growth of groundless doubt and fear and know only Love.

God blesses us always, and in all ways,

Love, Susanne
Emerson Online Studies

"Warmly Celebrating Spiritual Growth and Abundant Life in an Open Community"

http://www.EmersonOnlineStudies.org

"It is our duty - as men and women - to behave as though limits to our ability do not exist. We are co-creators of the Universe." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin