I think disillusionment is all about the issue of spiritual freshness—and the enemy of spiritual freshness is memory. It’s easy to remember a wonderful experience that you had once, and then try to re-create it. It’s easy to remember a teaching that you heard of how it’s supposed to be, and then try to make your life measure up to that teaching. Those experiences may have been helpful at the time, but in the present they can be enemies of the fresh and the new, because spiritual things only come one way: as Cliffe Connor put it recently, as neos, recently born.

So the question becomes: How do I give the things from out of my past a good swift boot in the rear to get them out of center stage in my experience? All the ideas about how people are supposed to be or how I’m supposed to be, all those fond memories of things that no doubt were in some way wonderful at the time, but really can’t be reexperienced. If they were wonderful at the time, it must have been that I was open then to the recently born. And if I could do that then, was there some extraordinary set of circumstances that set me free? Or if I could do it then, could it not happen right now, and always?

In everyone, I believe, there is the compulsion to do what is important in their life, no matter what the age. I know people in their teens and twenties who feel that urge and who are finding out how to let it guide their life choices. Personally, I remember the craving, the passion that filled every part of me, even to desperation. It was the desire to do what I was uniquely called to.

For people of my generation it may register differently. I believe it’s the same compulsion, but it registers differently at 59 than it does at 27. It may register as this thought: Well, I guess I won’t be here forever, and I do not want to leave without having done all of what I’m here to do. And if I’ve been distracted in any way, if I’ve been off course in some way, now is a good time to get back on course, to make sure that what it is I’m here for is totally fulfilled, totally done.

However it registers for us, it is that same compulsion that is within all people. It is the compulsion of life wanting to express itself, to fulfill itself, to create and reveal itself.

It is springtime here in Eden Valley, where Sunrise Ranch is located, and we walk around looking at the blossoms and the grasses growing in the fields. The spirit of life within all things is revealing its glory and calling that to our attention, as if it were saying, “Look how beautiful I am. Look how glorious I am. Can you see me?” We are uniquely made as human beings to see that beauty and that glory. It is not that other creatures do not have sight, but I don’t think it registers for them in quite the same way it does for us. We have this amazing capacity to see the glory and the wonder of life; to appreciate it and to drink it in.

At the same time, we have a part to play in the revelation of that glory and wonder. That is the satisfaction, I believe, of planting a garden. We don’t exactly make the lettuce grow—it is the water and the sun and the earth that do that. But without the gardener, that lettuce probably wouldn’t grow. There is something unique for us to do to assist the world to reveal its wonder and its glory. And clearly there’s something that human beings can do that makes it difficult, which creates a desert of one kind or another.

And then there is the revelation of the glory and the wonder through a person. Is there anything more glorious, truly, than the revelation of the glory and the wonder of what life is when revealed through the human form? By the time we get to my age, our bodies may not be quite as glorious as they looked at one point, but they are still glorious and wondrous. And it’s not just the wonder of life that is revealed through the physical body that is glorious about humanity. Through human expression, something of the origin of life can be glimpsed. Our purpose in life is to continually open so that we may participate in the revelation of what is truly beautiful, that we may reveal that to one another and be a mirror for that to one another; and though it may not need to be spoken in words, to say, “I see you” to the miracle of life all around us.

Having been to South Africa recently, I was reminded of a Zulu expression, Sawubona. It means “I see you.” And even more accurately, it means “We see you.” And the “we” is me and my tribe and my ancestors. We see you. When that is the spirit of our greeting of other people, something is liberated through us, certainly, in that seeing, and there is the opportunity for liberation in the other person.

It certainly beats “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know you. You’re a stranger.” In so many ways, that ends up being the message that human beings give to one another. Perhaps you catch yourself in the middle of that. And if you do, you have the opportunity to change the way you are seeing and greeting other people. You can allow a change of heart so that the coldness and the fear that’s conveyed through the expression “I don’t know you,” however conveyed, is overcome with the radiance of life from within.

I do believe that the core compulsion in us is good. It means good. It contains within it a desire for the well-being of the people in the world around us. And when we act on that goodness, when we act with compassion, we are acting on the truest and most powerful compulsion in our life. It is the compulsion that says you’ve got something to do here, and you don’t want to leave this life without having done it.

Anytime we allow for some kind of interference to get in the way, that’s the evil. As human beings, we are not evil or bad at our core—I don’t believe anyone is evil or bad at their core. Evil is “a disturbance in the Force,” as they put it in Star Wars, a disturbance in what’s being received by that person from life, and therefore a disturbance in what’s being transmitted by them to their world. An interference pattern has developed for humanity as a whole and for individuals, so that they’re not accurately receiving what’s been newly born: the emanation of power and intelligence from within us; and ultimately all power is the power of love. So a person has to clear through that interference pattern to receive deeply into them what is their first and primal compulsion in life. And then they are in position to convey that primal compulsion to their world and the people in it.

When the reception from within has really cleared, I don’t think we have to walk around saying “Sawubona” to each other. It just emanates from a person in everything they think and say and do, and in the words that they speak. That vibration from within comes all the way through and out. I believe we each have the opportunity to let that happen fully for ourselves, and that we have the opportunity to do that together with other people.

Sawubona. We see you. I say that to all the people reading this message, on behalf of all the people reading this message, and on behalf of all of us to all those in our world who are looking to answer the call they feel from within and do what is theirs to do in their life. Sawubona. We see you.

Thank you for participating in this work. Thank you for being part of this network of people that cares so passionately about these things—passionately enough that any kind of interference, disillusionment or jadedness is set aside, so that it does not get in the way of what we are here to do.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Sawubona

Almost as soon as that thought had formed, my gaze landed on a beautiful, joyful interchange between a mom and her child a couple of checkout lines over. It caused me to examine my thinking, because what I was seeing was something that wasn’t the experience of grumpiness or irritation I had come to expect. In fact, it was the opposite. That led me to think that maybe I’d been allowing my past experience at the co-op to determine my current experience!

I began to realize how little thought I’ve been giving to this subject of newness in my living. When I began to reflect on it, I remembered some wonderful verses in the Bible that give specific reference to the idea of “newness”—the New Heaven and the New Earth; pouring new wine into new bottles; “Behold! I make all things new.” These all related to something that wasn’t currently in my experience. I started wondering how something new stays new. I came to the conclusion that it’s impossible to keep something that has been made new, new. As soon as the moment in which the new is new has passed, the new becomes old—which leads me to believe that making things new is more about being in the moment and allowing what is new out of heaven to continually pour through me. In other words, as I dwell on or keep my attention focused on what has been made new, I follow it into the past, missing the opportunity the present moment affords me to make all things new.

One way to think about it is that newness isn’t an action or an event. The presence of a new heaven and a new earth is dynamic, ongoing. It isn’t a matter of establishing a new heaven and a new earth once, in which it comes one time and then it doesn’t need to come anymore. That goes against everything I know about living in the moment. The city of New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven doesn’t land today, and now the work is done. It’s the experience of every moment, the city revealing itself anew.

When we look at “new wine in new bottles” we don’t get one case of new bottles and then use them over and over…that’s the definition of old bottles. The new bottles have to constantly be available so that the new wine—which, by the way, is always new because it’s coming out of the wellspring at the center of Heaven—has a perfect place to reside. It isn’t my responsibility to create the new wine. It’s my responsibility to make sure that the bottles into which that wine flows are new and clean and transparent, so that when my world drinks that wine it is refreshed and nourished.

As I’ve been thinking about this matter of newness, I head down the path of seeing the potential for experiencing newness being based on allowing the moment, the current moment, to be empty of judgment, to be empty of crystallized thought forms and emotions. I begin to see that everything I do has the potential to be new, has the potential to be creative, if I let it be so.

I looked up the word new in the dictionary. You would think we would all know what that word means. It’s a small word, n-e-w, and I’m sure we could, each of us, come up with the accurate description. But I wanted to see the word’s origin. There are two root word listings—one in Latin and one in Greek. While naturally similar, I chose to focus on the Greek word—neos. That definition is “to be recently born.” And while that’s a simple definition, I think it is extremely profound in our consideration, because if something is recently born (new), there isn’t any valid means for comparing what that new thing is unless we attempt to compare it to something that has previously made an appearance (old). And without the ability to compare, to value or devalue, in fact to judge the thing, then any action that we take in relationship to whatever this newness is in our life must be based on the current flow of love coming through us in the moment! This, then, is something that is allowed to be clean and clear and pure, not sullied or shadowed by old patterns and old thoughts and old tapes—which in turn allows our living to be creative, to be fresh, to be nourishing.

So I would like you to take a look to your left and take a look to your right, and think about this: Based on what I’ve been sharing and based on your own thoughts about the process of “new,” the person(s) or surroundings that you just looked at are brand-new. You’ve never actually met them. You don’t even know who they are, actually, or at least you don’t know all of who they are, because since you last thought about them the earth has moved on its axis so that we’re all in a different place. The earth itself has moved in its orbit around the sun, so we’re all in a different place. The sky was different, the light patterns in our worlds are now different, there were new cells created and sloughed off in our own bodies since you last gave thought to the people and the place around you.

If what I’ve described is true, how could we ever, from this point forward, look at someone and think we know what they’re thinking and what they’re feeling and how they should act? I don’t think we can. And if we can’t make those judgments, we take that factor out of the equation; then every relationship we have is new, every relationship is pregnant with possibility, every relationship has the opportunity to be based in the current of love, as opposed to being based in old, out-of-date information.

This is true across your whole world, wherever you are. You’ve never been to that place before. So much has changed since the last time you were there, you get to experience it all anew.

I’m excited about this newness in my own living. And to the degree that what I’ve shared has touched something in you, wonderful! I appreciate the opportunity to spend this time with you all.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

The Constant State of New

What is a kingdom? It probably has many qualities to it, but ultimately a kingdom is a world. And if it is the kingdom of God, presumably it’s a wonderful world. You cannot find a world of wonder by observation. You could be in the most wonderful physical place, but you won’t find happiness there if you haven’t found it within yourself.

Early in my life, one of my spiritual teachers would quote Jesus’ saying, The Kingdom of God Is Within You,and then say, “Let it out!” But how does it get out?

The world within comes into the world around us because we open to the world within mentally and emotionally. The world within is a world of potential. It is the essence of what could be in the world around us. So we open to the world within when our thoughts and feelings turn to an awareness of the possible—what could manifest in our life. The world within is a world filled with the power of universal love and the intelligence of the cosmos. So we are opening to the world within when we turn thoughts and feelings to an awareness of that reality and let it flow through us.

We can’t know the substantiality of the world within by measuring it. What would you measure it with? You know the substantiality of the world because when you open to it, you are filled with it and it begins to fill the world around you. So you verify its substantiality through experience, and you invoke experience through opening to it.

This world within is a seed for the world without. For that seed to be planted and sprout and grow and become the world without, we have to open up to it and allow it to come through us, so that what was in terms of time and space infinitesimally small gains scope and stature in our world. But for that to happen, a person has to open to the world within, welcome it into heart and mind, and then act on the feelings and thoughts that are activated by it.

That seed is the only thing in your life or in anyone’s life that you can open up to fully and not be bound. It is the truth that sets us free. No matter how wonderful anything is in the world around us, opening up to it without opening up to what’s within imprisons a person. It doesn’t start off like that in the beginning. But the more a person is opening up to what is outside of them without opening up to what’s within, they find themselves bound. They will not be free. I can guarantee it.

I just spent two weeks at Glen Ivy, in Southern California. It is nestled against the Santa Ana Mountains on the inland highway to San Diego, with live oaks, clear mountain water coming down Cold Water Canyon, and a hot springs that has been a healing place for people for centuries. It is a beautiful place, and I love the experience it engenders for visitors. But if a person does not find a way to let the world within them out, there is no place in the world without that is beautiful enough to make up for it.

When Emissaries of Divine Light first came to Glen Ivy in 1977, there had been a flood that came down Cold Water Canyon, devastating the property. So it had been largely abandoned. We saw its potential, but it wouldn’t have been inspiring to most people. So if you perceive beauty and wonder in the world of Glen Ivy, the inherent nature of the place is a big part of that. But there wouldn’t be many thousands of people having the experience they do at Glen Ivy except for the people who have let the world within them out. That is what has transformed Glen Ivy.

Looking for the right person will not set you free. You may think you’ve found the perfect person, and even if they are the perfect person, they can’t set you free. You will be in chains. I can guarantee it, if you do not open to the world within you. It could be somebody you love deeply, a life partner, a child, or a parent. It could be an esteemed teacher or leader. If you do not open up to what is within you, that relationship will eventually lead you to an experience of bondage. I don’t care how great that leader is, I don’t care how wonderful that partner is, or how much you love that child. You will not be free if you do not open up to the kingdom within you. It’s the only thing you can give yourself to completely and totally—no fear, no risk, no downside, no side effects!

Here is the essential factor in a human life. So many people have lost touch with their connection to what is within them. They may be involved in some kind of religious or spiritual practice, but what we’re speaking of here is a matter of the heart primarily. While clear thinking plays a part in opening to the kingdom within, you can’t think your way into the experience. There must be an opening of the heart if the kingdom within is to come out.

It is a world waiting to be born. Just add water and it grows in your life. There is a reality you can’t observe with your senses; you can’t see it with your eyes or hear it with your ears. But you can see it and you can hear it with your heart. It’s not subject to scientific observation or measurement, although when a person opens to it, what can be measured about them changes.

Is there a reason why we should accept what we see and perceive with our senses and believe that it is real, but then reject the perceptions of the heart that tell us what is within us and what is within all things? When we do perceive the world within, and open to it, it is undeniably real. We are perceiving what is within us and within all things. The creek running down Cold Water Canyon is not just water. There is an essence to it; there is an inner reality to it, and to all things. When somebody else looks at you and has a conversation with you, and they are aware of that reality within you, don’t you feel ennobled? I think all of being is like that. It likes to be seen for what it is. But if we’re only looking with our eyes, we’re only seeing, at best, half the picture.

Can we just accept that we’re living in a world of great depth, a world that has a physical component but has many other components to it as well? I believe we are made to navigate our world with that awareness. From that perspective, if you watch people who are moving through their world with a lack of awareness of the kingdom within all things, it does seem like they’re stumbling around in the dark, bumping into things, making a mess, because they are trying to navigate the outer aspect of the world. So let’s find our own capacity to open deeply, to get down on our knees, however we do it, to yield totally and completely to what’s within us. If we do that, first and foremost, we can find our right relationship with everybody else and everything else. That becomes easy.

Years ago, when I first began to assume responsibility for leadership of Emissaries of Divine Light, somebody commented to me, “It must be really hard to meet the expectations of all the people who participate in Emissaries of Divine Light.” I said, “Yes, I guess so—but it pales next to the responsibility that I feel to what is within me.” There have been people who, along the way, have been disappointed in me and thought I did things wrong, and other people who liked what I did. But what’s true for me, and I believe for all people, is this: Our responsibility to the people around us is important, but not nearly as important as the responsibility we have to the calling that we feel from inside and our openness to that. Can you imagine living your life, feeling that calling, and not answering it clearly and fully with everything that you are? I can’t imagine doing that. I think that would kill me. Actually, that’s true for anybody. Ignoring the power of love and the intelligence of the world within eats a person up inside. Opening up to the calling of the reality within us, we are set free.

If we answer that calling fully and completely, we live in joy and fulfillment and happiness. That doesn’t mean life is always going to be easy. It doesn’t mean that there are no challenges in life. But even through those things, we have the joy and the fulfillment of answering our calling, of acting with integrity in relationship to the reality that’s within us, knowing that that same reality is within all things, all people, all places.

We are meant to be a sanctuary, a tabernacle, a temple for that reality. In fact, the whole world is. That’s what Glen Ivy is all about. Glen Ivy has been created by people who had the wild idea that this could be a living temple. Of course, the only way that the earth and the world become a living temple is as there are people who are living temples. We are amazingly made to open up to the inner kingdom. We have a capacity of thought and feeling that is made to be a portal to that reality.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

The Kingdom Within

There is the radiant core within each of us that is active all the time, bringing a flow of intelligence and love. That is available within all people, so that is not really the issue. We can tune into it anytime our consciousness turns in that direction. The issue is human thinking and feeling, and where it is turned. Practical spirituality is all about that turning.

For that turning to really happen, a person has to let go of any thinking that cuts across the intelligence that wants to flow from within. To put it in very simple terms, you have to let go of ignorance to embrace your intelligence. A person has to let go of unenlightened thinking to accept enlightened thinking.

One of the unenlightened beliefs that is so prevalent in Western culture that it is not even questioned is ownership. When Europeans arrived in America, it was a shock to the Native Americans who lived here to realize that Europeans believed they could own land without reference to a larger reality. Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag people who assisted the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock, said this:

What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?

We each have the opportunity to have a deep awareness of the universal power and intelligence that truly is the creator and owner of all people and all things. As we do, we are empowered to bring the vibration of that through our words, our thoughts and our feelings.

I don’t think we have to give away all our possessions to embrace the truth of who is the ultimate owner of all things. We can possess what rightly comes to us with the understanding that we are stewards for the larger reality of Being. A personal inventory can assist in a deeper understanding of who the owner of our world really is.

Where I live, at Sunrise Ranch, it is springtime. The blossoms on the apple trees are out. The elk are in the valley. And many of the trees are showing tiny yellow-green leaves. Whose valley is this? The property deed says “Emissaries of Divine Light,” and from a legal standpoint this human organization owns the property. While the organization has the role of possessing and stewarding the property, this land was not created by a human organization. It was created by the power of the universe, manifesting on Planet Earth in this corner of the galaxy. And I don’t believe that a property deed takes the ownership of this valley away from the power and intelligence that created it.

Thinking of the organization, Emissaries of Divine Light, whose is that? The organization was created by Lloyd Arthur Meeker, beginning in 1932. As I think of it, this organization is his—not really belonging to him as man, because he died in 1954. But it still belongs to the wisdom and power of the universe that came through him, and that he embodied in his life. I am a leader of this organization today. But I acknowledge that it still belongs to the power and intelligence that created it.

And how about the people in my life? One of the most beautiful passages in all of sacred literature is Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17. It includes these words:

Thine they were, and thou gavest them me….

All mine are thine, and thine are mine.

How about the people in my life, including the ones closest to me? Are they mine? Do I try to possess them? Acknowledging that the people in my life are part of a larger reality that I, as a human being, certainly didn’t create and which I do not own, I can see that they were given to me. I can give them an honored place in my life, filled with gratitude for the gift they are to me.

So why not take a personal inventory of what you may have thought belonged to you—your property and the people around you? Your relationship with the people and things in your life might change through a deep meditation on who they really belong to. And your gratitude that they have been given to you might grow.

Through such a process, a person eliminates a source of unhealthy stress in their life that comes from unenlightened thoughts and feelings. They align with the universal power and intelligence that created all things. See if that kind of alignment doesn’t give you a newfound gift to bring to the world.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

What Is This You Call Property?

If you are scientifically minded, you could call it energy. If you are religiously minded, you may call it God. But whatever you call it, the Roman Empire wasn’t going to put it down. Whatever you call it, it can’t be stopped. No matter what we do, every spring we look out and it’s bursting out all over. It’s bursting out within us. Once you get over the fact that our physical forms don’t live forever, you can appreciate that the universal power does. This is what the Easter story is all about.

It is said that Jesus came to save humanity. There is truth to that statement. But exactly what part of humanity was he out to save? Do you want him saving your bad habits for eternity? I certainly wouldn’t want the warlike tendency of humanity to be saved forever. Or hatred or jealousy. What was he saving?

For the most part, the Christian world has salvation all wrong. There are parts of the human experience that people hang on to that are inevitably passing away, and they should. As in so many things, the person is often unconscious that what they are doing is creating their negative experience. Their belief is that their experience is happening to them. And then they want Christ to save them and all humanity, or at least the good people. For the more scientifically minded, science may be seen as the salvation of humanity. For people of religious faiths around the world, perhaps it is a God by another name who will come to the rescue, or preserve the good people in a state of eternal bliss somewhere else. Some even believe that extra-terrestrials will intervene. So often it is believed that it is us, as humanity, that needs saving.

Is it possible that, as in so many other things, the common understanding of salvation, by whatever means, is exactly opposite to what is true? That the world needs to be saved from humanity, and not the other way around? Is it possible that the power and intelligence of the universe that we are designed to bring to Planet Earth is being methodically excluded from the human world through the machinations of people manipulating the world to meet their own ends?

If God is universal power and intelligence, then maybe God needs saving; saving, first of all, from the limited beliefs, ideas and images humanity has of God. Saved from the impact of human beings on this planet, created by the universal power and intelligence. Then saved from imprisonment in heaven—in the realm of unseen potential. Despite the apparent brilliance of some of our inventions, the real potential of humanity to live in peace and abundance, and in harmony with the natural world, has been largely locked up within us.

It is easy to see the political, financial and industrial manipulation at work that is attempting to claim the world for itself. I know that for me, seeing such things was an important part of my path in life. Yet seeing what other people are doing, and contending with it, doesn’t fix the problem. The problem begins to be addressed when a person realizes that the world they inhabit is not theirs alone, to do with as they will. It is addressed when the individual sees what he or she is doing to lock up the universal intelligence and wisdom inside themselves, and then performs an act of salvation by letting it out.

Practical spirituality is all about this process. It is about changing our relationship with the life force within us, which changes our relationship with the world around us. It is a shift in polarity so that a person finds their own ability to yield and to open, and offers that openness to the universal power and intelligence within them. And having done that, there is life-giving understanding and kindness that they share with their world and the people in it.

Opening your thinking plays a part in this process. But in the end, it is a matter of the heart. So I believe that any true spiritual practice involves our ability to yield and open and respond, and realizing that our capacity to do so has been pointed in the wrong direction, that we have yielded to something that does not deserve to be our god. I don’t think that just because we may go to church, or meditate or undertake some kind of spiritual practice, we are necessarily undertaking this work. Because this is a matter of the heart. It’s not a matter of who you associate with, either. You could be with all the right people, go to all the right seminars or meetings, or go to all the right Web pages. You could go through the motions, and it may not change your underlying dynamic.

The key factor in whether or not we set free the universal power to come through us is, in the end, a matter of the heart, and what the heart opens to. True spiritual practice is about letting the heart open to what empowers a person, instead of knocking them down.

So how is it going for you? How is your heart doing? What is it opening to? What is exercising your feelings these days? What’s growing large in your awareness, because you are open to it and responding to it? We all have the opportunity to open to the universal power within us that gives life. We can open to the intelligence within that inspires our thinking and actions. When we do, we have a natural urge to be generous, and a natural tendency to radiate a sense of well-being and blessing to the people around us.

It is a matter of the heart when it comes to facing the hard things in life. It is a matter of the heart whether we face challenges and refuse to acquiesce to them. Because acquiescence is a kind of response. It is a kind of opening of the heart. And you can’t worship your challenges and worship the universal power within you at the same time.

This is what the Easter story is all about. You can read Jesus’ prayer in John, Chapter 17, as he opened his heart. It tells the story of a man yielding to what was within him in a time of challenge. When he faced his largest challenge, he wasn’t worshipping Pilate or the Sanhedrin; he wasn’t worshipping the disciples who fell asleep and who were, for the most part, too scared to show up on the day of his crucifixion. He wasn’t worshipping the cross or the tomb. He wasn’t acquiescing to those things. He was too busy surrendering to something else. He was surrendering to that reality within him that he spoke of as his Father; that universal power, that universal Being that is the most real thing about anyone. We can’t be opening to that and yielding to our challenges, all at the same time.

Life has a way of giving us opportunities to realign, reorient and start anew. I had a funny thought on Easter morning. It was about my Mini Cooper. I’m not a big car guy. I have friends who love cars, but I didn’t grow up wanting a Ferrari or Corvette. But several years ago my friend Greg Bullock was selling cars in Denver, and one day he drove a Mini Cooper to where I live at Sunrise Ranch. He let me take the car out around the reservoir in the valley, and it was thrilling. Because of the size and the way a Mini Cooper handles, they call it a go-cart on rails.

Sometime later, when we needed another car, I found a used Mini Cooper, sunroof and all. I have to confess that there have been a few times when I put it through its paces, going around the reservoir and beyond. I didn’t take it to its limit. That wouldn’t have been safe for me or the elk that live in this valley. There are tracks where you can take a car to its limit, but it wouldn’t be safe here.

Why am I telling this story? Because our basic orientation in life is a matter of the heart, and sometimes you have to put that to the test, and that’s what I was pondering on Easter morning. Sometimes you have to stop dabbling with your spirituality, and stop alternating between self-preoccupation and half-hearted attempts to be spiritual. Sometimes you have to put the pedal to the metal.

So how about opening to that reality that is within us and taking it to the max? Do we use our spirituality as a pleasant relief from our usual preoccupation with the people and events of our life? Or do we actually take our own spiritual experience out for a test drive and ask ourselves, so just how much am I willing to open, spiritually? Just how much of my own potential am I willing to welcome into this mind and heart? Am I willing to have my heart cracked open by the sacredness of what is within me and within everyone? If we are willing to let our emotional realm be cracked open, the reality of who we are can be set free. We can share that reality with somebody else. The power and intelligence within can inspire and bless others when we let it out.

If that’s going to happen for us, we have to be able to take our spirituality out for a test drive. If we are not going to settle for a small stream of the universal energy coming through us, we have to be willing to open it up.

So do you have a safe space for opening it up? Someplace where you won’t be embarrassed to take it to the max with the people in front of you? You may not want to do it over breakfast. You probably don’t want to do it on the job. But do you have someplace in your life where you can get down on your knees, however you do it? Where you can pray the most full-hearted prayer that you’ve ever spoken, and allow yourself to be split open, so that any of the small things that you’ve been worshipping about yourself, any of the challenges you’ve been acquiescing to, can be cast off and let go?

We are alive. The reality that animates us is mystical, powerful and intelligent. Let’s let it out. That is the powerful message of the Easter story.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

The Mystical Power of the Easter Story

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder
help someone’s soul to heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

Stay in the spiritual fire.
Let it cook you.

Be a well-baked loaf
and lord of the table.

Come and be served
to your brothers.

You have been a source of pain.
Now you’ll be the delight.

You have been an unsafe house.
Now you’ll be the One
who sees into the Invisible.

I said this, and a Voice came to my ear,
“if you become this, you will be That!”
Then Silence,….and now more Silence.
A mouth is not for talking.
A mouth is for tasting this Sweetness.

                        —Jalaluddin Rumi, Ode #3090 (translation by Coleman Barks)

Rumi’s poem suggests that the mouth is there to taste the sweetness of the creation. We can savor what comes to us as we receive it. There is a substantial harvest that is ours to receive and to bless. But what has been made really clear to me in the last few weeks is that there is yet a much greater harvest. We are responsible for planting and tending seeds that are ours to plant, that hold promise of a wonderful harvest to come. And there are many seeds being planted in the world all the time, creative impulses being given expression and manifestation. Some of those seeds give promise of a beautiful harvest, and some will yield a less-than-beautiful harvest. Nevertheless, the harvest that comes to us is ours to receive, to welcome and to bless.

I’d like to read some words that David Karchere wrote recently.

What will happen in the days to come will be no more than the vision we hold right now. We have no right to think that what will happen in the future will be greater than the truth we are perceiving and giving voice to now.

I believe those words put the responsibility for what the future will be squarely where it belongs—in the hands of those who have accepted responsibility for being in position to receive the harvest. That harvest includes people—people’s hearts, people’s response, people’s questions, people’s ideas, people’s desire to collaborate, to co-create. There is a wealth waiting to be welcomed and received.

I love the phrase that is used in some of the Eastern philosophies, which speaks about a field of infinite possibilities. What is possible to us depends on the vision you and I hold. With a large enough vision, it’s all available.

But there are limitations to the vision that can be held in a self-preoccupied consciousness. Thank God for that, because imagine if self-preoccupied function had free access to an infinite field of possibilities! It does a pretty good job of causing havoc with what is available to it in its present state. I don’t think that it needs to be given any more power than it already has.

A consciousness that is yielded in humility to divine Source—which is in reality at the core of that consciousness, and actually created it in the first place—can hold an expansive vision that will allow the manifestation of that vision in the earth.

I discovered a quote the other day from Arnold Toynbee, a British historian who lived in the early 20^th century. He said: “Material power that is not counterbalanced by adequate spiritual power, that is, by love and wisdom, is a curse.” Spiritual power, brought into the world by those who know in humility that it’s theirs to bring and who have the wisdom to balance the material power that’s already present, can allow a shift to occur in the way humanity relates to that power.

But the invitation has to be extended broadly into the world, as the invitation was extended in this country recently through these words, which were the name of the recent Creative Field Conference in Cape Town: “South Africa: Your Destiny Is Calling.” Something wonderful was born through the Creative Field Conference and the Destiny Concert as a result. Surely the call is now “World, your destiny is calling. Humanity, your destiny is calling.” Who is it who will extend that invitation? We are the ones. We are the ones who have the vision of what is possible. We are the ones who have it to extend; it is the business that we are about together at this time. And we are ready and eager to welcome whatever might come back to us in response to that call.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Humanity, Your Destiny Is Calling

The Temple of the Living God is often thought of as a building or some other place separate from human beings. It is seldom thought of as the person themselves; and, for most people, they certainly wouldn’t think of their own flesh as the Temple of the Living God. However a person may think of the dwelling place of the Divine, usually it is thought of as a place to visit, either by entering a building or by journeying to a place in consciousness through pure thoughts and feelings.

In religious or spiritual circles, the dwelling place of the Divine is often worshipped as something separate from the person, and the remarkable human capacity is cursed. The body, the mind and the emotions are often considered coarse, as if there was something fundamentally unspiritual about them.

These words from John in the Book of Revelation speak about the collective temple that humanity is designed to be, and the personal transformation that allows a person to play a part in that experience:

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. (Revelation 3:12)

This description involves people. Whole people, bodies included, make up the pillars of that temple. All parts of being human are holy in the temple. It all serves and it all belongs. It is that simple.

“I will write upon him my new name.” What is the new name of a person who is a pillar in the temple? I don’t think it is necessary to change my given name, but can my name be spoken in a new way? Can your name be heard and spoken in a new way? There is a passage from the Easter story in the Bible, in the Book of John, which takes place in the garden on Easter morning. Mary Magdalene is concerned because Jesus’ body is not in the tomb and she is looking for him. And while she’s standing there looking, he speaks her name: “Mary.” She knows who is speaking. Her name is spoken and she knows who is speaking it by the way in which he says her name. He was standing there, mistaken by her for the gardener. Yet when he says her name she sees him and knows who he is.

That passage has always touched me deeply, because somewhere along the line someone spoke my name, and when they did I not only recognized the person speaking to me but also experienced myself in a new way. In my case, it was Bill Bahan. He just looked at me and spoke my name, and I knew he knew who I was. He’d known me for a moment, and I’m not even sure he said “Jane.” But he gave voice to that quality of consciousness and energy that evokes who I am. I believe it is our job to speak that same tone, so that everyone hears their name. Everyone remembers that they are an integral part of the temple that we, as humanity, are made to be, if they so choose.

We don’t have a choice about who hears our voice—the quality of consciousness and energy that we bring to the people around us. Do you ever feel a little concerned that you’ve been speaking and nothing seems to be happening? It’s important to remember we don’t have the right to determine whether or not someone chooses to notice. In speaking the invitation to hear your true name, I don’t have the ability or the right to determine who’s listening, or who’s interested in hearing. But I do have the responsibility to stay in the temple so that when someone hears their name, they know where to go; they know how to find their way. There’s a sounding tone that provides a lighthouse and a clarion call to the substance that does ring in a person when they hear their name spoken.

I know many people—I’m sure we all do—who have changed their name in a desire to have it ring more true for who they are, who they feel themselves to be. They see it as one of the ways they could shed an old identity. I think that can assist, though, as I said, I’m not up for it myself. But I know that when someone changes their name it is usually done because of a hunger to be seen differently, to have that which is in them that’s thriving and longing to come out be seen and heard by someone. And it won’t be seen and heard by those people who see them the same old way.

We see differently when we let our own temple personally be filled with a fresh awareness and fresh energy, and when our words carry that experience. Then we speak with the voice of one who is a living pillar of the temple. And we hear differently when we speak with the tone of that experience. Everything looks and sounds different when you are in the atmosphere of the temple.

A friend told me once that he said to his spiritual teacher, “I really am glad you didn’t give that speech when I was younger, because I would have walked out.” The teacher said, “I did; you just couldn’t hear it.” Truthfully, my friend hadn’t had the capacity to hear at the level he was currently hearing. It was not that the truth wasn’t being spoken. There is grace involved in the process, so that we hear one step at a time. For a person who continues in spiritual emergence, they understand that they are the pillar in the temple, responsible for speaking that same tone, that same vibration.

In the temple there is a holy experience, a sacred experience that can be known. It is not all about being in silence and stillness. It involves being at home in your temple and “going no more out.” We can be boisterous and full of lustful passion in our temple, and nothing is defiled as long our passion is for the Divine. In the human experience, particularly for religious or spiritual people, lust and passion can have a bad name. They say that is what takes you off-track, out of holy experience. What if exactly the opposite were true? What if lust and passion for the Divine were exactly what brings a person into holy experience?

There has been a strong message to me throughout my life that I had to be careful because I was such a passionate person. It is true that misdirected passion can be disastrous, and if you bring a lot of passion and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could do damage. I know that through experience! As a pillar of the temple, passion and lust are not a problem. They belong, as does everything that serves the Divine. If you are going to serve as a pillar in the temple, your passion has to come with you. It is part of you. It is sacred and welcome in the temple.

Who you are is perfectly designed to be in the temple. You are designed to create and manifest. Those things happen because you’re there, not in spite of you being there. After every act of creation in the story of Creation in Genesis, God says that it was good. When did that stop? It’s still good when we manifest in service in the temple. The temple is our true home. We don’t have to manifest grass and birds and clouds and skies and stars and things. That part is done. We now have the opportunity to be in this garden, this temple, and keep creating. At the end of our day we can say, “It was very good.” It was very good, what we created individually and together.

The power of manifestation is in us. It is what we were designed to do. Our creation is holy when our passion for the Divine fills our temple, transforming the quality of consciousness and energy in us. And then, the vibration of the Divine creates a new world.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Passion in the Temple of the Living God

How was it said of John the Baptist? He was the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.” The truth is also spoken of as a still, small voice; hardly worth paying attention to. But all great achievement comes from what initially seems insubstantial.

So the work we have to do personally to bring spiritual regeneration to this world is to let the truth come to focus in us, because we have the courage to embody the truth in our living. That is what gets traction in the human world. I think a voice crying in the wilderness can be brushed off as crazy. A body of people expressing and manifesting the truth, bringing the current of spirit through their living, individually and collectively, becomes undeniable.

So here we are, at this point in the creative process. There are many ways to measure where that point is: it is 2012, nearing the end of the Mayan calendar, or whatever other way you may want to mark time. But here we are now, with all the facts as they are in our life and in our world. In this present moment, we come together as spiritual beings in human form to share a true vision of what must be if spiritual regeneration is to be a reality. We are present to set in consciousness, and in the human energy field that we share, what must be in the days to come if what is true is to manifest.

What is ours to do now to allow the truth to be embodied? The Trustees of Emissaries of Divine Light met recently at High Noon, outside of Cape Town, South Africa, to consider this question. What steps do we have to take? What yet has to be ignited in us? What yet has to be purified and cleansed from us? What further resolve has to land in heart and mind? What further ferocity has to come through us, so that we say no to things we need to say no to, and yes to what we must do?

I write with the conviction that what will happen in the days to come will be no more than the vision we hold right now. We have no right to think that what will happen in the future will be greater than the truth we are perceiving and giving voice to now. Because the limit to what will happen in our future is not established so much by the events outside of us as it is by the nature of our vision now, and by our courage in being a voice for that vision and acting on it. So how strong will that vision be? How high will it reach? How clear will it be? How consistently will we act on it? We have no right to expect that anything more than that will transpire in the days to come. And if it did, we wouldn’t have the capacity to participate in it. If the future is happening to us instead of because of us, we are doomed.

In our Trustee sessions at High Noon, we spoke in very practical terms about what might be possible in our field of service and what the path might be to get there. We recorded parts of that vision on flip charts as we went along. By the time our sessions concluded, I had a desire for the seven of us to stand in the middle of our meeting room with those flip charts posted around us, and then ask ourselves, who are we going to have to be if that’s going to manifest? What stature of man, what stature of woman, what stature of leader, must we be if this vision is to manifest? I believe that this question is relevant for anyone who holds a compelling vision of the future.

It might seem that it’s a call to be something greater than we are. It isn’t really. It is a call to give up the smallness that most people cling to for most of their lives. It is an exercise in expanding our awareness of who we are and what is possible to us if we will be all of who we truly are.

I think it’s easy to see that we could never create in our world what is possible to us through arrogance—by trying to be something more than you really believe you are. No, it could only happen because we get down on our knees in acknowledgment of the stature of who we are created to be, who we are at our core, and get humble enough to accept the largeness of that stature—not because we can make ourselves into that but because that is how we were made by the Eternal within us. In the humility of accepting that reality, we can stand in our true stature, putting away any of the pettiness that we might be inclined to give way to in our life, because we cannot bring the voice of what is truly possible to our world by being petty in any way.

To embrace the Divine Reality within us, our own heart has to be split open, that we may truly be penetrated by that creative spirit that is our source. We have to be ready and willing to be split open in feeling and in thought, shattering any cheap concepts of spirituality, any playing small, so that we may think the thoughts of what is truly possible, and see what the Eternal has in mind.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

See What the Eternal Has in Mind

As the story goes, Arthur was the son of the former king, Uther Pendragon. Arthur was hidden away at birth by Merlin in a time of chaos in the kingdom, for fear of his life.

Is this not how it is for most people? By nature, they have qualities of a king or queen. It is their birthright. They are noble, even regal, but they live in a chaotic world that seems to be a threat to their nobility, as if they couldn’t dare to expose their true identity to others. They have the capability to bring peace and order to their world, and to let it prosper. But that capacity is not only hidden to the world; it is hidden to themselves. And for it to be inherited, the capacity has to be developed.

When Arthur came of age, Merlin set the sword, Excalibur, in an anvil upon a marble stone, with the following inscription:

Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.

As this transpires, Arthur is the squire to his adopted brother, Sir Kay. When Sir Kay forgets to bring his sword to a tournament, he asks Arthur to fetch it for him. Being locked out of the house, Arthur resorts to stealing into the churchyard alone and drawing the sword from the stone and anvil for Sir Kay. Sir Kay attempts to claim the kingship for himself, but it is only Arthur who is able to draw the sword and put it back again, and thus Arthur who is crowned king.

Arthur represents that guileless reality within all people that has no designs to be sovereign—no need for worldly position. Arthur’s motive is to be of service to his brother. That desire to be of service is the beginning of a person’s journey in life that takes them to their own sovereignty. It is not the ambitious Sir Kay who ascends the throne, nor the bickering lords of the realm. It is the guileless Arthur who, at first, draws the sword from the stone with no audience and no fanfare.

The sword is found in a block of cold marble, sitting in the churchyard at Christmastime. What is that cold marble from which anyone has to claim their sovereignty? It is the stony human heart, without compassion and frozen by fear. Like Sir Kay, a person may aspire to greatness, as they think of it. They may sense that they have something significant to accomplish in their life. But as long as their emotions are like that cold block of marble, they can only pretend to be the person they know they really are. Only the compassion that inspires us to serve can melt the stony heart and transform it, so that it gives us our sovereign power. Only the melted human heart gives us the virility and the fertility to truly serve our world and the people in it.

There are many forms of fear. There is acrophobia, the fear of heights; and arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. There is ablutophobia, the fear of washing. The greatest of all fears is fear of the sovereignty within. Adonai is a Hebrew name for sovereignty, so I think you could call that fear adonaphobia, fear of sovereignty.

A true sovereign—someone who offers real service to their world—brings both love and truth to the realm. Most people are afraid of them both. Love is what makes all people and all of being the same. We are part of one reality, animated by one universal power. There is a deep-seated fear in people of the oneness of all being. There is a fear that we would lose ourselves; that we could lose our uniqueness and what makes us different; we would lose the ability to carve out our own path and our life. There is a fear that we could be cheated by love and that the universe might not really care about us in the end. What looks like love could turn out to be a malevolent force that works for our demise, not our blessing.

Truth is what makes us all different. The universe has order to it; so while we are all animated by the same universal power, we are all different. No two people are just the same. We each have our own unique place in the world. The fear is that the differentiating power of the universe could give us a place that is not the one we want—at the bottom of the org chart, in a lower tier of society, or the black sheep of the family. Or when talents and abilities are passed out, we could be on the short end of the stick. If we submit to the ordering power of the universe, we could end up having to do something we do not want to do.

So often people find themselves fending off love, however it may come to them, from within and from without. And then they try to establish their own self-determined way of being different. In the process, a person can experience themselves as separate from the sovereign power within them, and afraid of it. Fear grips the person’s heart, and they have the ongoing experience of feeling impaled emotionally, just as the cold marble is impaled by the sword.

Adonaphobia shows up as fear of authority. In the world the way it is, there is good reason for people to be afraid of authority. Yet still, the path to personal freedom compels a person to rise above that fear so that a person owns their own authority, their own authorship for their life. Adonaphobia also shows up as unresolved issues with parents. Those issues can be crippling for people, sometimes even into their own senior years.

Turning back to the story, the anvil represents the means by which adonaphobia may be transformed. It is interesting that while T. H. White’s novel was entitled The Sword in the Stone, the ancient texts make it clear that there was an anvil on top of the stone, and the sword was drawn from them both. An anvil is used by a blacksmith to make a sword in the first place. There has to be an application of heat to the steel, and then a pounding on the anvil. Both are needed. Pounding cold steel will not create a sword.

The heat and the pounding represented by the anvil are the living of a life of service that transforms a person. It is the process by which the heart melts and gives a person their sovereignty. Without the fire of love welcomed into the heart, a person is just pounded by the circumstances of life. They are beaten down over time. When the fire of love is present, the substance of the heart becomes malleable. The emotional body is shaped and formed so that it becomes an expression of the sovereign power and authority, which the person had feared. The person’s sovereignty becomes available to bring vitality, fertility, order and love to their world.

This is how the story represents this:

Thereupon Arthur went to the cube of marble stone and he laid his hands upon the haft of the sword that was thrust into the anvil. And he bent his body and drew very strongly and, lo! the sword came forth with great ease and very smoothly. And when he had got the sword into his hands, he swung it about his head so that it flashed like lightning.

I would encourage anyone to claim their sovereignty from out of whatever stoniness there is of their own emotional body; to let their heart be set on fire by love, and transformed by a life of service. Thus we inherit what has been rightly ours all along—the nobility that is our birthright, and the capacity to lead our world and all who are in it to the experience of peace and order and abundant life.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Adonaphobia

When the principles are followed by a group of people—a family, a community or an organization—life increases for the members of that group and for the group as a whole. When those principles are not followed, the universal energy didn’t go anyplace. It’s just that it is not flowing creatively for the people involved.

The principles of manifestation rely on the energy and intelligence of the universe—God, by whatever name you want to give to God. We have a particular part to play in bringing the magic of manifestation. As human beings, we are the means for magic to manifest on earth. All of creation at all levels is a part of God; and we, as human beings, are God the Means. Most people have lost track of that reality. Not just the name God the Means but the reality of the experience of being the means by which magic happens and life manifests.

The manifestation of life on earth relies on the already-existing energy of the universe. We as human beings don’t have to make that up; it’s already there. Our job isn’t to make it so—it already is so. We are not making our heart beat, and we are not consciously orchestrating many of the other vital processes that are going on within us. That is all happening because of the universal energy that is at work. Thankfully, there are ranges of that operation that, for the most part, we cannot alter consciously.

We call the potential that is inherent in the power of the universe God the Possible. There is God the Possible related to every person and every circumstance. There is what could be, what could manifest. There is power within all creation. We would have to acknowledge that God is not just any old power. God the Possible is an intelligent power, because it is clear that there is an intelligent pattern to the manifestation of life. There is both intelligence and power at work in the principles of manifestation. Using other words for the same realities, there is both truth and love. That is God the Possible, and it is already present. But we have a part to play. So what is our part in letting God the Possible be God the Manifest?

There are two key components to the human capacity that allow us as human beings to be God the Means: conscious thought and emotion. There has to be a change from the usual state of human thought and emotion if a person is to become God the Means. That change occurs when a person’s thoughts and emotions turn toward God the Possible. If that turning was a physical process, it would be easy to learn. But it isn’t. It is an internal process that involves parts of us that we cannot see. And yet, the turning is as real as it would be if it were a physical act, and the results are profound.

Put simply, here is what you have to do to become God the Means: stop obsessing in thought and emotion about what is happening to you. Take time to turn your attention from that to God the Possible—to the intelligent power within you. Invite peace. Invite the possible. When you do, you will immediately notice that there is a new flow in your thoughts and your emotions. They begin to entertain the creative possibility of what could happen. They begin to paint the world of your observation with a vision of beauty. You have become God the Means, and God the Possible is moving through you.

This change in orientation is the process of spiritual centering. As human beings, we are designed to be centered in God the Possible. Spiritual centering is a foundational principle of manifestation. A true spiritual practice evokes spiritual centering, perhaps in a time of meditation, attunement or prayer. The daily application of the practice maintains spiritual centering while engaging in the activities of life.

Spiritual centering is the simplest and most foundational of principles. It is the consistent practice of it throughout life that brings fulfillment. Neglect of the practice dissipates the experience of life. Spiritual centering brings the experience of God the Manifest—physical forms that are full of life. The closest physical form we each have is our human body. Spiritual centering certainly brings more life current to it. There are so many other physical forms that give shape and dimension to our life, and they can all be part of God the Manifest.

Jesus of Nazareth was perhaps the greatest spiritual teacher the world has ever known. In the Christian world, there has been a fixation on his birth and crucifixion, and the teachings of those who came after him. As a result, his own teachings have been largely ignored. For a person who receives those teachings with fresh eyes, there is amazing instruction in the principles of manifestation.

Jesus knew the key issues that people face in becoming centered in God the Possible. There is resistance in the human makeup to turning to face the real potential for our life, and Jesus spoke to that resistance in clear and unequivocal terms. Here are three issues he addressed in his teaching of spiritual practice:

1. Self-preoccupation. Concern for what is happening to me, what I will get, and the credit that will come to me.
2. The need to control. The need to manage how the process unfolds.
3. Self-will. The desire to be the ultimate determiner of what happens.

Here is how his teaching was translated in the beginning of what is referred to as the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

The first line invokes the turning to God the Possible, and then the prayer addresses the issues.

Hallowed be thy name. As tempting as it is to believe that my life is for and about me, it is not. I am in service to the possible. A name is about identity and selfhood. The purpose of my life is not to glorify myself as a human being. I honor divine, eternal being.

Thy kingdom come… A kingdom is the ordering element for the world. I acknowledge that there is an order inherent in God the Possible. I can trust that order and let it flow through my thoughts, emotions and actions.

Thy will be done…The power within me and all creation has the possibility of the manifestation of life within it. I don’t have to fabricate a purpose for my life. My life isn’t centered in what I want. I trust that the will inherent in the power of creation brings life, and life more abundantly.

The emotional realm plays an essential role in spiritual centering. When it turns to God the Possible, our feelings open up to the universal power of love. We receive love; we receive blessing. We know that we are empowered, we are cared for, by that universal power. You will find that people who live their life that way have a certain aura about them and an inner contentment.

Blessing, and the receiving of blessing, is brought on by gratitude. When we are thankful for our life, when we’re thankful for that power within us, we commune with that power and we’re filled with the spirit of blessing. We receive it personally, and we have it to give to others. Gratitude can be a spiritual centering practice.

While the words Holy Ghost have been used to mean many things in a religious context, the phrase refers to the human energy pattern when it is open to God the Possible. When there is spiritual centering, there is the coming of the Holy Ghost. This is the coming of the power of manifestation. It is the power of creation moving into the human energy field. For that power to work, a person has to stay centered. If a person reverts to obsessing over what is happening to them, the power diminishes. That’s helpful, because we don’t need great power functioning through an unaligned instrument. We need a centered instrument so that the power of the universe can work through the human capacity and bring what it’s meant to bring, and manifest what it’s meant to manifest.

As human beings, we are meant to be the means for that intelligent power to come into the human world. And the human world includes the natural world on Planet Earth. We are designed to bring an ample quantity of that power. We are actually designed to bring as much power as is needed to deal with the circumstance that is in front of us. Is that your attitude in the matter? Do you believe that you have the capacity to bring as much energy as is needed to creatively address the circumstances in front of you? Do you know how to get more energy if you don’t have enough?

Through spiritual centering, energy grows. All of the confused, chaotic factors that are present in our world can be addressed if we become God the Means, and welcome the coming of the Holy Ghost. But we have to be up for that. We have to know that we are resilient as human beings and that we have the capacity to bring the power that we need to bring to the circumstance. If you look at humanity as a whole, for the most part it’s quaking in its boots. It doesn’t really believe it’s got the power to deal withthis circumstance, whatever that might be for the individual, and for humanity as a whole.

We also need the intelligence and the control factors that are required to allow that power to work effectively. We have to be willing to receive the universal intelligence. But to receive it, we have to trade in how we want it to be, how we think it should be to receive the order and the will that comes from God the Possible. We have to let go of our beliefs about what is wrong with the circumstance as it is. And let go of all of the reasons why the people around us are doing it wrong and therefore it is impossible. That is God the Impossible. If you are honoring God the Impossible, it may be time to find a new god. It is God the Possible that’s needed. So we have to give up our impossibilities if God the Possible is to manifest in our life and in our world.

Spiritual centering brings the increase of God the Means so that the Possible can really manifest. That’s why people who understand the principles of manifestation apply the practice of spiritual centering when there is a challenge in front of them. Humility is the refuge of great character. That’s where great people go when faced with a challenge. They get down on their knees figuratively speaking, maybe even literally, and open their thinking and feeling to God the Possible, by whatever name. Because if you are faced with a challenge—something you don’t understand or something that seems like a block in your life—the way to have more of what meets that challenge is humility; in other words, openness to God the Possible.

The corollary is that arrogance is the refuge of small character, because when a small person faces a challenge, they become arrogant. They pretend that they already know what to do. They pretend that they have an ability to overcome the challenge, an ability that they do not yet have but which they could have if they were humble. They pretend that the process of manifestation is all about them. And as it’s said, “Pride comes before a fall.”

Humility is the refuge of great character. Great people are humble in the face of challenge. And being humble builds great character, because when we are open in the face of challenge, we become wise and we become strong. Those are qualities of great character.

So let us be humble and open in the face of our challenges, so that the power of the Holy Spirit can come into our world and change those things that need to be changed, and give birth to what is waiting to be born. The intelligent power of the universe is quite capable of transforming whatever blocks the manifestation of life. But only when there is the presence of God the Means—the spiritually centered mind and emotions that are open to that flow.

Post from: Emissaries of Divine Light

Spiritual Centering