Going With The Flow

MSG-01-Jun-2017

Title: Going With The Flow

Teaser:  God for us, we call you Father. God alongside us, we call you the Christ. God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.

I have been very remiss in my messages lately. I apologize.  There are just many issues brewing in my life right now and I am going through a phase where it is extremely difficult for me to concentrate or focus. Right now I am out of state on assignment – so this unease and lack of focus will continue for a while.  So, please bear with me.

I did receive this from a friend and wanted to pass it along to each of you. It is a brief meditation/essay on the Trinity. Although I stay away from “theological” kinds of discussions, this is simply very well done, as is most of his material. It is entitled Living in the Flow

“If the Trinitarian life flows between us, then every aspect of our lives is something that we can allow, enjoy, and steward. A Trinitarian theology gives you the understanding that you are being guided and you are participating in the Great Mystery. And it has very little to do with you except, like Mary, your “yes” – seems to be crucial. It matters. God does not operate uninvited or undesired.

“You are a part of the flow. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and you too-to the degree you say yes"—are also a giving and a receiving constituted by the same relationships of love that are the Trinity. (Enjoy that for the rest of your life!) You dare not stop this flow without losing your essential self. Each person of the Trinity welcomes one hundred percent of what is offered, which is entire and unrestricted, and then pays it forward one hundred percent. This flow is the origin of our notions of Grace and an Abundant Universe. There is Divine Generosity at the center of everything.

“You can live this Trinitarian mystery yourself. Trust love, trust communion, trust vulnerability, and trust mutuality. Always seek to be in relationship, finding little ways to serve others, to serve the sick, to serve the poor who cannot bay you back. Know that your heart is given to you and needs to be handed on, just like the Trinity. And you'll begin to know yourself inside this mystery called Love. There is actually nothing more to say. We could end the book right here.

“Don't try to work this out too much with your head. Just trust the flow of the most natural, dynamic, and positive energy that's already flowing through you. It will always feel like Love, and even love that sometimes hurts.

“‘God for us, we call you Father. God alongside us, we call you Jesus. God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.’”

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 June 2017

FCopyright 2017

Describing of My Unforgiving Self

Several days ago I did Lesson 121 in A Course in Miracles (ACIM). In ACIM the act of forgiveness is understanding there is no “sin” against God. After all, I am truly an already-loved eternal spirit living in the mind of God, I am not a separate human being that houses, somewhere, an eternal soul. There is only error based on false egoic perceptions. AA old-timers state: “The easiest way to forgive is to not blame in the first place.” I think it’s the same essential message.

LESSON 121:  Forgiveness is the key to happiness

1 Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety [from] dangers that appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace….

2 The unforgiving [egoic] mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace and soar above the turmoil of the world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the danger lurking there.

3 The unforgiving mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees; afraid and angry, weak and blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of light….

4 The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only sins. It looks upon the world with sightless eyes, and shrieks as it beholds its own projections rising to attack its miserable parody of life. It wants to live, yet wishes it were dead. It wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope. It wants escape, yet can conceive of none because it sees the sinful everywhere.

5 The unforgiving mind is in despair, without the prospect of a future, which can offer anything but more despair. Yet it regards its judgment of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has condemned itself to this despair. It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears witness that its judgment is correct. It does not ask, because it thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right.

6 Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind which cannot sin. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self and Who can never sin.

Yet, I fight this concept at times. I just don’t want to do it. Why? What do I have to give up to get this kind of peace and serenity? Perhaps …

·      The joy of blaming

·      The fantasy of winning the lottery or achieving fame and glory

·      The self-righteous superiority I feel when I believe I’m right

·      The belief that my anger, fear and distrust are justified because I see anger, fear and distrust (not understanding that I’m just seeing what I’m projecting).

The Lesson goes on to instruct me to go inward and bathe in the light and peace I find there. While at that place, forgive someone I dislike and notice how the light of forgiveness “splashes” onto me as well. Then do the same with someone I like.

So, I went to my “holy” place within me and stood in front of the calmimg white light that I know is my True Self. I have done this before, but – for the first time – I sensed a connection with a Being – not just the Light and its Peacefulness. I also sensed He communicated with me: I sensed Him smile.

I said, “Hello,”

He said, “I wait for you.”

I said, “What do you do?”

He said, “I am.” Again, He smiled and said, “I wait for you.”

Then I smiled.

I noticed that in earlier lessons and visits to this holy place in me, I remained something/someone different than the bathed-in-Light-Self I encountered. But, for the first time I felt like I and He were both face-to -face and alive. I know I am not finding the correct words to use – but I wasn’t “alone” in front of Him. I was together “with” Him.

After this short meeting with my Self, I promptly dozed off.

I still get goose-bumps when I think of this. I found it very enjoyable. I was very relaxed.

I just wanted to share this experience with you.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 May 2017

Copyright 2017

Letting Go of the World I Perceive

Spring is already starting where I live in East Tennessee. But it’s only early March – there’s still more frost coming. This phenomenon will lead to another “Oh! My!” set of moments wondering if the early-budding trees and shrubs will be able to deal with another early Spring anomaly.

Well, of course they will!

These plants and trees have forgotten more about dealing with an early Spring than I’ll ever know. But, since our house is back on the market and my job is to stop living here and to become, instead, the groundskeeper and caretaker, I’ve already found myself worrying a tad. I would love to tell you I’m so spiritually mature that it’s been years since a worry crossed the threshold of my mind. But I’d be a flaming liar if I told you that.

Why do I worry? About my landscaping? About the state of our country? About my financial legacy – or lack thereof? About the utter lack of leadership in our Congress that is willing to – apparently – jeopardize our Country’s welfare and the integrity of our political institutions for short-term political goals or for party affiliation?

But the good side of worrying is that it has proven to be the most reliable feedback mechanism my True (spiritual) Self can receive informing me that I have relinquished my True Identity for the petty, false identity of my ego – which I have named Felix.

At a recent AA meeting I had shared that my serenity depends a lot on which of the two “me’s” is in control: The spiritual me that is an already-loved eternal spirit currently having a human experience or the me that believes I am a body inside of which resides an eternal soul. If I’ve been thinking of myself as a body with a soul, then my serenity is always pretty shaky. If I am aware of my Self as an already-loved eternal spirit, my serenity is as secure as Fort Knox.

Following the meeting, a friend asked me if I really believed that. I said yes, I do. He asked me to explain it. I tried – but it was harder than I thought. So, I’m trying to sort my thoughts out with this post.

A Course In Miracles (ACIM) talks about having a higher and lower mind. It talks about the role of the physical body. It talks about physical sight (via eyeballs) as opposed to spiritual vision, which only occurs with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. It talks of REAL life as being one of the Spirit, but we think of “real” life as that which we can see with our eyes.

One of the more succinct statements in the ACIM about this is from the Manual for Teachers, Section 27, What Is Death? The text reads: “1 Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path – all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.

2 In this perception of the universe as God created it, it would be impossible to think of Him as loving. For who has decreed that all things [will end] in dust and disappointment and despair can but be feared. He holds your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without regret or care, perhaps today. Or if he waits, yet is the ending certain. Who loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is real. Death has become life's symbol. His world is now a battleground, where contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. Where there is death is peace impossible.

3 Death is the symbol of the fear of God… The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot coexist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God [i.e., humankind] in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms wait to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." [Within this perception of the “real world] God is insane, and fear alone is real.

4 The curious belief that there is part of dying things that may go on apart from what will die, does not proclaim a loving God nor re-establish any grounds for trust. If death is real for anything, there is no life. Death denies life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied. No compromise in this is possible…. God did not make death because He did not make fear. Both are equally meaningless to Him.

5 The "reality" of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God's Son [humankind] is a body. And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving. There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world [Spirit] and that of the world of illusions [my egoic perceptions] becomes more sharply evident….”

I am an already-loved eternal spirit. That is who I am. That is how God made us. Felix sees through my physical eyes and shows me a world of fear that is illusionary. My worrying is directly proportional to the degree I let Felix run my life.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 Mar 2017

Copyright 2017