Destiny Blog

 By Diane Donovan           

I was watching a movie this week, which I saw over the period of a few days.  Ever since I got rid of cable, I watch parts of movies whenever I have a few minutes until I complete one.  This one was called Hugo, based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.  Hugo, a young boy lives alone in a clock tower due to tragedy. He is trying to fix an automaton, which we would probably think of as a robot.  Hugo is trying to fix the automaton because he believes that it will give him a message from his deceased father that will bring him the comfort and meaning he seeks.

The movie demonstrates quite brilliantly the ways in which humans attempt to find meaning in life. It shows how we lose faith and even think that perhaps we have no meaning to find.  Even more brilliantly, the movie guides the viewer on a journey from the loss or the seeking of meaning to the finding of it sitting right in front of you all along. It has been nominated for eleven academy awards for 2011 and is the first family 3D movie ever made by Martin Scorsese.  Maybe best of all for me is that the movie is about the need for magic in our life, that magic is not a cheap parlor trick but a real inspiration about all that we can become here.  It can show us our purpose in the whole machine of being.

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) this week has been leading the readers down the same path as Hugo, which is some of the magic in life that movies, books or interactions all lead to the same path each and every day of our life. The key then is to wake up and notice the connection we have to the big picture and magically that we are not only part of the big picture; we are an integral part of a picture that wants us to know our self. Then, by knowing our self, we know the big picture because we are not separate from it.

Last Saturday Cheryl quoted from ACIM, “God is my strength. Vision is His gift.” It goes on to say throughout the week:

“God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.”

“God is the Light in which I see”

“God is the Mind with which I think.”

“God is the Love in which I forgive.”

“There is nothing to fear.”

And for today, Lesson 49 “God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day.” I woke up with that thought because I read the lessons every night before I go to bed for the next day. I woke up listening.

Really what more is there for you to do then but to breathe, relax and listen?  For what reason do we plot and plan and think other than to manifest God in our life?  When a person with an addiction goes to a twelve step program, what do they say will create recovery? They tell you to work the twelve steps with a sponsor who has worked them.

Step One: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (or substitute your obsession here)  – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Step Two: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

We are a part of something so grand and so magical that it is easier to complain and look away than to believe the truth. It is simpler to wallow in our pain, suffering and lack than believe some power greater than our thinking wants to assist us and that maybe our pain, suffering and lack are leading us to that home. I don’t know about you but I have lost count of how many times in my life that I have been so miserable and upset that I have given up, surrendered and then looked to God as the source of my discomfort or begged for relief.  I have also lost count of how many times a serious miracle occurs immediately, not later but the very moment I surrender to being a cog in the bigger picture I call God.

As watched the movie, it became clear that Hugo is not only a person who fixes clocks, he is a child who brings people back to their wholeness. On Wikipedia I was looking for a quote from a book I love called Breath of God, a book containing several of the most famous religious scriptures from various religions. Instead of the quote, I found a definition of psychology that I have never seen. It stated, “The word “psychology” literally means “study of the soul.”

In Judaism, the soul means the breath “The soul is believed to be given by God to a person by his or her first breath.”  The breaths of God are the scriptures that God has given us as directions for the soul here in this experience.

It so happens that whether you watch Hugo, read ACIM or look at the sun rise, you are in communication with God. When you get what you want and when you do not, you are in communication with God. When you are grateful and when you complain, you are communing with God.  Maybe the worst of it is that you do not hear all that IT is saying to you because you are so loudly thinking your own self absorbed thoughts about how it SHOULD all be or as ACIM say, you are creating illusions. 

This week, my nephew, Mitchell died. He was 39 years old. He was my children’s cousin on their father’s side, his half-sister’s youngest and only living son. He would be the last of that Donovan line except that he has two young children. He was a significant force in my life. His mother was a junkie and so as it happened in those days when I was a very young woman, I let her live with us with her newborn baby Mitchell, her three-year old son Thad along with my two children at the time Barbara and David, ages two and four. Mitchell was neglected by his mother and I talked her into putting him up for adoption.  She did it but then when he about nine months old, her alcoholic father talked her into taking him back, to live a life with drug addicts. When he was three years old, he came to live with us again because his mother was in a drug induced coma and it took her a year to recover. We were told they found him in a crib where he had been trapped while she lay on the floor for twenty-four hours. We thought about adopting Mitchell but she would not have that unless we took her in as well. So again he left to live with drug addicts and his alcoholic grandparents. In those days, children did not get taken away so easily. Finally, he came to live with me again when he was about 15 for a short time. I was long divorced from the family but to me he was like a child I could have raised but for the drug addicted parents, I was blocked. I don’t know if his mother was dead by this time. Where was she, dead or alive she was never present?  Finally, I heard he had joined the military and served his country in Iraq. He seemed to have surpassed his struggles and lack of family support to create and life and family. Then, he left the victim of an aneurysm I have heard.  I loved him and losing him was like losing a child over and over throughout his life. I lost him many times and yet maybe I was his psychologist for the time I had him. I was the one who was given a little time to guide his soul in this life. He came to me when he most needed care and left like a cloud passes through the sky, always changing. Such is everyone and everything in our life, transient.

I think of Mitchell just like Hugo thought of the automaton. I thought I could fix him and then I thought I failed.  The key word here is I thought. In fact, I cared for him and loved him when he was there, not always as well as I wished I could but I made it my business to pay attention to the situation and do what I could with what was in front of me with what ability I had at the time. In the end, he goes on through his children and through our memory of him. He was a sweet and adorable child who was an integral part of life and lived a life that had a meaning for who knows how many. I only know he existed and meant something special for me. Now he has love and peace.

 By Cheryl Cornelius

When I was speaking a couple weeks ago about prayer, I quoted from Gregg Braden’s book called Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer.  I did not put the page number next to the quotes because I couldn’t find it on the page.  I looked several times thinking there was something wrong with me because there had to be a page number there.  I finally gave up and didn’t think about it again.  I was sharing the book the other day with a young girl in my office and when she handed it back to me after reading the passage, she said, “that’s odd that they didn’t put any page numbers in this book.”  I just looked at her and thought, wow, that is exactly what Braden was talking about in this book.  He says, “the ancient texts elaborate upon the idea that we create by observing with one important—and often overlooked—detail.  They suggest that it’s the quality of our beliefs while we’re looking that determines what our consciousness creates.” (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, p. 28)

When the girl made the same observation I had about no page numbers, I was truly shocked because I thought it was just my oversight.  The page numbers are there, but not at the top or bottom of the page where we believe they should be, instead they are in the middle on the side.  Braden goes on in this section to say that “if we view our bodies and the world through a lens of separateness, anger, hurt, and hate, then the quantum mirror reflects these qualities back to us as anger in our families, illness in our bodies and war between nations.  If feeling is the prayer…then when we pray for something to happen, while feeling as if that same something is missing in our lives, we may actually be denying ourselves the very blessings we hoped to create.  On the other hand, if we can view ourselves from a perspective of unity, appreciation, wisdom, and love, then these are the qualities that we may expect to see mirrored as loving supportive families and communities, and peace and cooperation between nations.  Imagine the possibilities….” (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, p. 28-29)

Braden talks about very specific studies that have been conducted as far back as 1972, with published results in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1988, where as few as one percent of a city’s population in the United States participated.  Similar experiments were done in the Middle East, where people were asked to feel peace in their bodies rather than just think about it or to pray for peace.  They had amazing results in all of these experiments which were measured by declines in terrorist activities, emergency room visits, less traffic accidents, crimes against people, etc.  When they were asked to stop feeling peace, the numbers rose again.  He said, “while these and similar studies obviously deserve more exploration, they show that there’s an effect here that’s beyond chance.  The quality of our innermost beliefs clearly influences the quality of our outer world.” (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, p 32)

This is what we are doing here every week when we place our intentions (or prayers) in the despacho.  We all watch as those intentions are burned and the smoke carries our prayers up to God.  Every week we watch in amazement as the fire burns differently each time because of the beliefs each person has accompanying their prayers.  We need to feel and believe in the possibilities of what we are putting forward in those prayers so our intentions can be reflected back to us.  While our backs are turned to the fire, we silently add our gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the creation of what we are praying.  Braden says, “rather than attempting to make the world bend to our wishes, feeling-based prayer changes us.  We bend, and the world spontaneously reflects our improvements.” (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, p. 34)

Being non-reactive when someone is directing their irritation or anger at you, gives you a sense of how powerful your beliefs can be.  For me, it is the strongest feeling of freedom I have ever experienced.  Most people want to be in control and they mistakenly believe they achieve control by controlling others.  It is exactly like what Braden talks about with feeling prayer rather than thinking it.  When we achieve the feeling of peace inside, it then is reflected back to you.  The more you practice staying calm and holding the intention of peace, the world around you changes because you have changed.  You have heard Diane talk about how powerful those changes were reflected in her life.  The more she practiced peace, love and compassion, the more people around her thought she didn’t care about them anymore because she was totally non-reactive.  She continued to hold a feeling of peace inside, even when she was confronted with arguments or disagreements with others.  It works.  We control from the inside.  So how do we do this?

In the Gospel of Thomas, it says, “If you bring forth that which you have within you, it will save you.  If you do not, it will destroy you.”  Braden states that among the ancient Gnostic texts are passages suggesting that our vulnerability to suffering is the doorway to healing and life.  “In the Gospel of Thomas, one of the most inspiring of the recovered texts, the author describes the power of our vulnerability as part of a discourse from Jesus:  “Blessed is the man who has suffered and found life.”…Ultimately, the love that lives within each of us is the source of all healing that we experience.  To feel our love, however, we must be vulnerable to our pain.  Hurt is one way for us to know how deeply we can feel.  Our capacity to feel pain within ourselves, as well as have empathy for the pain of others, shows us how deeply we can love.  Simply put, hurt is the price that we sometimes pay to discover that we already have the love we need to heal ourselves.  Sometimes, merely knowing of the relationship between wisdom, hurt, and love is enough to catapult us to the other end of the extreme and to healing.” (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, p. 44)

What they say is true…we already have what we need inside of us.

Another way of practicing this lesson is by doing A Course of Miracles.  I think it mirrors the same principles Braden is talking about.  There are 365 lessons which you can read and practice the each lesson several times a day.  Today’s lesson says, “God is my strength.  Vision is His gift.  The idea for today combines two very powerful thoughts, both of major importance.  It also sets forth a cause and effect relationship that explains why you cannot fail in your efforts to achieve the goal of the course.  You will see because it is the Will of God.  It is His strength, not your own, that gives you power.  And it is His gift, rather than your own, that offers visions to you.”  (ACIM, p. 65) 

In this lesson they explain how to create a practice session to go into several times during the day.  Close your eyes for a moment as I explain the lesson and then allow yourself to practice it now.  This works better is you are laying down, being still, taking a deep breath, but I want you to at least practice it once here today.  I want you to say the statement of the lesson, “God is my strength.  Vision is His gift.”  Then, just stop and allow other thoughts that may be related to this one statement to flow across your mind without stopping them or judging them, just observe them as they float by.  You don’t want to direct or force your mind to do it right.  Just allow it to happen because this is an exercise in practice.  The Course explains, “The idea for the day is a beginning step in bringing thoughts together, and teaching you that you are studying a unified thought system in which nothing is lacking that is needed, and nothing is included that is contradictory or irrelevant.” (ACIM, p. 66)  This is just one example of how you can practice with your mind for an eventual goal of feeling the peace grow inside of you.

In Colossians, 4:2, it says, “Be earnest and unwearied and steadfast in your prayer (life), being (both) alert and intent in (your praying) with Thanksgiving.”  (taken from the Amplified Bible) And it further says, in James 5:17, “Elijah was a human being with a nature such as we have (with feelings, affections, and a constitution like ours), and he prayed earnestly for it not to rain, and no rain fell on the earth for three years and six months.  And (then) he prayed again and the heavens supplied rain and the land produced its crops (as usual). (taken from the Amplified Bible)  Those verses can be interpreted to explain the same principle Braden talks about – feeling prayer and sealing those prayers with gratitude.  This is what we want to practice especially when we put forth our intentions in the despacho.

I want to end with a meditation from Teresa of Avila.  Please close your eyes and “Breathing deep into your being, call on the mystical grace of God.  Let this grace permeate every part of your consciousness.  Feel the majestic nature of who you are, and know that it is God who creates every part of your being.  Allow a deep feeling of gratitude and love to rise within you.  Take this love, along with honor and respect—for yourself and all beings—into the world.” (Falling into the Arms of God, by Megan Don, p. 229)

And so it is……

By Diane Donovan

 I was at my mother’s house the other day and a door moved. I said to her husband, “Is Mom haunting you.” He had trouble hearing me. He wears hearing aids but I think he was having trouble comprehending my question for a moment. Finally, he said, “No, I haven’t heard one word from her. Have you?”

“Oh yes,” I replied I have seen her.” He got quite interested at that point, his hearing now perfectly focused. “I saw her standing with David on the other side and she looked  about 27 years old. She must love it since she got her good looks and vitality back!”

You might think he would tell me I am crazy but he looked wistful. If only we could believe that maybe there is more to this life than old age and death, suffering and struggle. Oh we all have our moments of noticing the bliss of this world but… This life can be quite challenging. As my youngest son told me when he was about five years old, “they take your memory away when you come here, but I wanted to remember so I brought some with me. I remember standing with Jesus and seeing you and David and Barbie looking like you were all sleeping.” My youngest son, Bryan is not a church goer by the way since he has trouble with being in crowds. It’s kind of a shame that he isn’t since he has been saying his whole life that he remembers being with Jesus before he was born. People might get comfort to hear that he remembers or they might just dismiss is and think he is crazy.

If you doubt the existence of life beyond this world, then read The Barn Dance by James Twyman. However, just like with Bryan you could think he saw the other side, that he made it up or he is delusional.  The book was sitting on my desk today as I wrote the sermon. I had forgotten it was there. But like a flashlight in the dark, it appeared as I thought about a sermon. When I read it, I had already seen my son, David  on the other side for years but The Barn Dance gave me a new appreciation for other dimensions besides my self-centered trips to a place I call the room in the sky. After all, surely there are many mansions in heaven. In fact, the Bible states just that message.

 Close your eyes and take a deep breath while I read this passage. Do not think about it, just let it roll over your consciousness like a gentle wave of refreshing water or a pleasant cool breeze on a warm day.

King James Version  

John 14: 1-6

 ¹“Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God; believe also in Me.
²In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.
⁴And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.”
⁵Thomas said unto Him, “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?”
⁶Jesus said unto him, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”

Even though many religions argue over the meaning of scriptures exactly like this one, I have always loved to read them. The exact meaning is never the point of a scripture when you are a mystic, who is  “a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the deity or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.” (http://www.google.com/search?q=define+mystic&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&tbo=u&q=mystic&tbs=dfn:1&ei=J8gpT56fIaKFiALK__jBCg&ved=0CDQQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=aba7181f448da4e8&biw=1024&bih=672)

Whenever you encounter sacred words, these are the codes in our language that can guide you through the energy of the oneness that is reality. Whenever you are silent, stopping your brain from interpreting all that is, you will begin to feel and eventually to live in reality. We do not lose reality but in fact we block it from our awareness and pretend that the fantasy that we create is all that exists. It is easier that way because we have come to believe that our senses are the only source of existence.  But for true happiness or joy to occur once and for all, means to flow with all that is every moment of what we call time, which does not exist.

The other side, other dimensions or knowing the truth are unknowable by intellect alone. Think about hearing aids or glasses. They bring into focus what your ears or eyes can sense. But in order to see the other side or to hear the truth, one would stop hearing and listening to the interpretations of the brain and allow the remembrance of what is real to reveal itself to you.

“They take your memory away” but… basically Bryan willed himself to remember anyway. It is not that we cannot see or hear the truth. It only requires surrender or the will to do so, the will to relax our need to explain, sort, categorize, judge and otherwise focus on our sensory experiences of the world around us. 

Imagine for moment, complete silence. Close your eyes and stop everything. Relax and take deep breaths. Listen to the silence. Before you open your eyes again, imagine you have just been born into this life and that you know nothing about anything you will see, hear, touch, taste, smell or feel.  Open your  eyes and experience everything in this moment of time.  You are flooded with information and your brain attempts to explain it all to you. Stop again and allow all of this experience to just flood into your being. Look around and listen. According to the quantum physicists, your reality right now is coalescing into being because of your attention.  Close your eyes again and notice that it is much easier to relax and breathe when you quit creating reality for a second.  All the reality creating can be exciting, fun, boring and awful, even terrible.

Maybe your next logical step now would be to wonder why you are here creating realities, sometimes subconsciously creating realities you would prefer not to experience?  Maybe you can relate to why people live as hermits or attempt to stop creating as much because when you question all this reality creating, it becomes a mystery of why are we doing it all?  What is your purpose here?  The brain may even be at a loss to attempt to answer that question.  If you are creating reality, then why do it to begin with? 

This whole line of reasoning brings me back to the expanded state of consciousness, having contact with the other side and really allowing all the sacred codes in our language to impact us as often as possible.  This is a very long way of saying that maybe surrender and prayer would be the answer,  or in that definition of being a mystic.  How would it be if every reality I chose to create were based on my connection with the Divine?  How would everything in your world and the whole world change if you could always maintain your connection all the time to the Divine, which is actually reality because we are connected all the time to the Divine since we are not separate from it? That is the very reason that the word Remember is more accurate than the word maintain because like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, all you have to do is remember to tap your ruby slippers three times and you are home.

In The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking it states to see as God sees, feel as God feels, know as God knows. Look around at the world and say, “I am that,” and listen for the response, “I am.”

In The Barn Dance, James asked Richard (who is sort of like the guide for James into a barn dance where he gets to meet the other side) “So let me ask you in a very straightforward way,” I said. “Have you ever seen God? Has God ever come to the barn?”

“I’m seeing God right now,” he said without hesitating, “through you. “Isn’t that the point… To be able to perceive the Divine in every situation, and to see God in each person we encounter? My willingness to see it in you means that I am also open to sensing it within myself. Then the boundaries begin to break down and separation means less and less. As you said before, God sees everything as one, not separate. If we learn to do the same, then maybe everything will change.” 

by Cheryl Cornelius

When someone we know dies, it always sets off a series of chain reactions which naturally include thoughts about losing the physical presence of someone we love, questions about our own mortality and an immediate reexamination of our life – our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and values.  One of the hardest assignments I ever had to do in school was to write my own obituary.  It was like being outside of yourself, observing yourself from a totally different perspective to give you an insight into how others may perceive you.  As you are looking at yourself from the role of an observer, you are the one being forced to see everything about you.  Then you have to write about yourself from the third person.  It is a very powerful exercise of accepting yourself for who you really are in that moment, because it is as if you have died and you are watching yourself from above. 

I recently had a client who had an epiphany while we were talking in session where he had a spontaneous thought, which was, “what would I want someone to say about me when I die?”  He said I am going to remember that and use it to stop myself before I act in a situation when I am angry.   We have and always will have questions about life and death – why am I here, what am I supposed to be doing and am I doing that?  What does it mean to be on your spiritual path – how do you know if you are on the right path?

Some people believe that we die once we have accomplished whatever spiritual lessons we were supposed to learn.  One definition of the different ways of dying is described as, “The ultimate way is a peaceful and fully conscious abandoning of physical body in full union and harmony with God as a result of most intense spiritual preparation and a life of love and services of love in the name of God.” (Taken from the website www.kriyayoga.com)  This is a beautiful statement, which seems to evoke a deep, peaceful sigh of relief.  If we do actually get to choose our own way of transition, this one sounds like a good choice. 

When we contemplate whether we are actually on a spiritual path or not, many feelings of doubt, insecurity, inadequacy or not being worthy may arise.  These messages may come from internalizing negative messages we heard as children.  As we grow older, those messages start to feel like cement encasing our hearts and preventing us from giving and receiving love.  So we begin chiseling away at the cement, starting to trust again, trusting ourselves to be open, vulnerable because that is the space where we allow love in.  We have to love ourselves first before we can begin to send love  outward to others around us.  It was so easy when we were young children to feel the innocence, curiosity, excitement – eager to explore with delight the world around us wanting to share our discoveries with people we loved and trusted.  That state of being still exists inside of us, we have just closed the door on it, believing the closed door or hiding behind the wall we built up protected us from ever feeling hurt again.  All that really happened is that we created an illusion in our mind to keep us safe; it isn’t true that it kept us from being hurt.  The hurt crept in underneath the closed door and over the wall still preventing us from feeling love and being able to love others. 

Love is the feeling that will lead us to our own true spiritual path.  In I John, 4:16, it says, “And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us.  God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.” (Taken from the Amplified Bible)  By cracking open the door you so tightly closed around your heart, you allow love back in and you feel the power of that connection of love between you and God.  Again, hear these words, “God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.”  It becomes a continuous flow, a circle of love that goes out to the universe or God and returns back into your own heart.  The flow of that energy is the force that is ever present leading us forward in our own spiritual path.

Teresa of Avila wrote about love in the 1500’s where she “reminded us that clarity of being is necessary in understanding the true and perfect love.  Those who have been given knowledge of their true nature and of this world care little about being loved.  Their only concern is for the soul of the other person.  Love, for them, is only important when it is of spiritual benefit; all else is without substance….We are called, said Teresa, to imitate the love that Jesus, the good lover, had for us.  Everything is seen and known in the truth of love.” (Megan Don, Falling Into the Arms of God, p. 210-211)  

William Paul Young, in The Shack, describes it this way from the voice of God, “Love and relationship.  All love and relationship is possible for you only because it already exists within Me, within God myself.  Love is not the limitation; love is the flying.  I am love.” (p. 196)  He further described it from the voice of the Holy Spirit, “I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful.  Because I am your ability to respond, I have to be present in you.” (p. 205)  This is repeating what the scripture says in 1John 4:16 I mentioned above, “…God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.” (taken from the Amplified Bible) Can you feel the energy of the circle in this scripture – when we love ourselves and others, we are loving as God loves and we are loving as God loves, because He loves us.  It is an unbroken circle of the energy of love, which is how we find our true spiritual path.  It is so simple – all we have to do is love and receive being loved by God. 

In the book, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, Gregg Braden talks about a field of energy that scientists have discovered, which he says, “is not entirely electrical or magnetic, these familiar forces are a part of the unified field that appears to bathe all of creation.  Because awareness of this field is so new, scientists have yet to agree on a single name for it….Whatever we choose to call it, this energy appears to be the living canvas upon which the events of our lives are inscribed!…scientists sometimes describe it as a tightly woven web that makes up the underlying fabric of creation—literally, the blanket of the Mind of God….Braden likes to think of the field as the “stuff” that lives in the nothing….The modern recognition that the Field exists now gives us a language, and a context, to make sense of spiritual wisdom in scientific conversations.  The Field, for example, is believed to be the place that the ancients referred to as “heaven.”  It is the place where souls go when we die, where we dream when we sleep, and the home of consciousness.”   (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, p. 20, 21.)

We can believe this describes the space where Diane Donovan’s mother, Paula has recently transitioned into.  Paula was an introverted person by nature, which made it difficult to read her outward expressions.  She was a tough-minded, strong, independent woman evidenced in part by the fact that she chose to divorce her husband in the early 50’s, which was practically unheard of in that time.  Paula had a fierce determination to survive, continuing to go to work every day into her eighties.    She was keenly intuitive and very psychic.  She had a pulse on every person in her family, which sometimes also included me.  It was uncanny.  Even though her expressions were not easy to read, Paula definitely showed her love to her family and friends through her food.  The food she cooked had a sensational flavor, which I believe was created by the special ingredient she always added – love.   Whenever she was coming to one of our get-togethers, my first question was always, is she bringing her potato salad and her famous cherry pie – obviously, my favorites.  I believe that Paula was on her own, true spiritual path because of the powerful love she shared with everyone.  My hope is that Braden is right about the place where souls go when we die because it is comforting to feel that Paula is there now, not so far away because the Field is all around us.

In John 14; 1 – 6, it says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated).  You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me.  In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places (homes).  If it were not so, I would have told you for I am going away to prepare a place for you.  And when (if) I go and make ready a place for you, I will come back again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.  And (to the place) where I am going, you know the way.  Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?  Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me.”  (taken from the Amplified Bible)

I would like to close by sharing a passage from Marianne Williamson’s book, Illuminata, where she starts with a quote, “Death shall be the last enemy,” said Jesus.  What He meant was that we would no longer perceive death as an enemy.  We would recognize that death is not death but a recycling of energy, a remodulation of the cells according to higher assignments in a soul’s progression.  The spirit does not die, but rather enters new channels of life.  The power of God is greater than death.  Our relationships are not severed at death, but refocused beyond physical connection.  As our vision of life changes, so will the physical world.  As we lift our eyes above the illusion of death, we will begin to see the eternity of life.  Jesus did not die when He died, and neither do we.” (Marianne Williamson, Illuminata, p. 116)

By Diane Donovan

 ”I am determined to see. I am determined to see things differently.” From A Course in Miracles, these two statements suggest that somehow we miss reality.  (ACIM) Neutral is my word for this year. The mind thinks the way it does! Usually it is anything but neutral. When you observe the mind you are meditating. When you participate with your mind, you are creating a reality based on the information you obtain from your senses, which are then filtered through your mental categories. Unfortunately, the faster your mind works, the faster your mind projects meaning on the world around you. Research suggests that the faster you make decisions, the more likely you will make mistakes and that people overestimate their ability to know.  Of course, just because you spend more time making decisions does not necessarily mean much either if your brain is a liar, projecting your personal meaning onto reality.

Those of us who have meditated and/or observed our mind for any length of time may have noticed that our mind has some themes it continually prances out on regular occasions. These themes involve money, success, love, relationships, other people, fear, lack, abundance, happiness and more. Usually we have our personal favorites or demons as the case may be. My personal favorite demon thought theme is always about not getting something I think I need to finally make my life complete.

Observing my mind is one activity that I continually attempt to accomplish after I discovered how extremely negative and anxious it is. Really, it was shocking at first to find out the sad state of affairs inside my head! I mean I had tried practicing positive thinking before I ever observed the negative messes inside my head much less uncovering the hidden subconscious issues and beliefs. In fact positive thinking can work but when the underlying belief is based on fear and lack, well… All the positive thinking in that case is based on a lie. What exists in this world that you can obtain that will finally make your life complete?  The secret is that you already are complete. Right now, this moment in time you are complete. Everything else are experiences you are having to which you attribute meaning.

Inside the mind is the story of our encounters from the beginning and maybe even beyond because our DNA has been around a long time. Our realities are influenced by numerous  factors, the environment, culture, nutrition, exercise, DNA and the list may be infinite all coalescing with our thoughts and beliefs.

When you begin to observe your thinking, your emotions, your behaviors and outcomes, you may even hopefully discover your connection to God!

“I  am determined to see. I am determined to see things differently.” (ACIM)

In fact, everyone of us is connected, a truth that manages to be hidden from us.  We like to think that our thoughts are private, that we can have privacy, which is basically impossible. If you get very still, stop thinking and explaining, you will begin to see things differently. You can actually hear everything talking and nothing is hidden.

A long time ago I was thrust into silence and meditation only to discover that my houseplants were talking to me.  My mind tried to ignore it but the sad truth is that before I heard them speaking, they did not thrive. Now, many years later, I live in a jungle. These plants did not say what I projected them to say because what I thought they needed was killing them! So it is with all of reality. In order to see, neutrality is the state in which you do not know.  It is silent, a void in which your mind is quiet and listening.  Often times, when I have this experience, I hear something right away and then have to fight off my mind’s reaction to the information, or its doubt.

I saw on an online news service the other day that the universe is a hologram, not an idea that is new to me but apparently has recently received some press coverage. This theory of physics can be read in The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. The theory suggests that three dimensional reality is a hologram.  When I envision this holographic universe, I think that maybe it means that humans are like characters in a video game and the reality of you is really somewhere else playing the game of earth with your character.  My question would be, what is this game and why are you playing it? How would we ever be able to know the answer without listening to the information underlying the hologram? Scriptures contain codes within them that offer you hints about the rules and goal of the game we are playing.

Every part of a hologram contains all the information of the whole picture so that no matter how large or small it is, the picture repeats and repeats just like beautiful fractal images of which I never tire. Every part of the meaning of this life is contained in you. Every part of the whole is contained  in you. It is not in your thoughts but in the structure of your being and very possibly every bit of the information is communicating with you all the time.  As I read the following scripture from 1 Corinthians 12, listen quietly. Maybe close your eyes and allow the words to flow through you without comment or decisions. Codes like life work best when are neutral and just listening. If the mind interferes, you might miss some of the code. Listen as if you are listening to God speaking.

(New Living Translation (NLT))

1 Corinthians 12

Spiritual Gifts

 ¹ Now, dear brothers and sisters,^[a] regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. ² You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. ³ So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

 ⁴ There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. ⁶ God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

 ⁷ A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. ⁸ To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice^[b]; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.^{[c] 9} The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. ¹⁰ He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages,^[d] while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. ¹¹ It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

One Body with Many Parts

 ¹² The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. ¹³ Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles,^[e] some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.^[f]

 ¹⁴ Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. ¹⁵ If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

 ¹⁸ But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. ¹⁹ How strange a body would be if it had only one part! ²⁰ Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. ²¹ The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

 ²² In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. ²³ And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, ²⁴ while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. ²⁵ This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.

 ²⁷ All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. ²⁸ Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church:

   first are apostles,
second are prophets,
third are teachers,
then those who do miracles,
those who have the gift of healing,
those who can help others,
those who have the gift of leadership,
those who speak in unknown languages.

 ²⁹ Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? ³⁰ Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not! ³¹ So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts.

   But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

If you study scriptures for a lifetime, you will uncover more and more of the truth, not because they change but because you do. You will uncover more and more of the truth of everything when you are neutral, when you acknowledge that you do not know so that you allow the truth to reveal itself to you. 

” I am determined to see. I am determined to see things differently.”  This year, 2012, is the year of neutrality. We have all done separation. We have all done judgment of self and of others. We have been seeking for power, seeking to embrace the divine feminine or the divine masculine or just plain believing the lies the mind tells us about reality. This year, let us find the silence, the void, the truth of a reality that is not divided, with one being better than the other. Let us find within the silence, the song of peace, love and connection. Being neutral, let us allow a truth to emerge and set us all free to be the game of heaven on earth.

by Cheryl Cornelius

 Over the last few weeks I have again been caught up in “computer” issues.  This time it was my printer that wouldn’t work.  These issues always seem like such a conspiracy to me, like why does it have to happen while I am off from my day job for two weeks and could get so much work done at home.  The printer worked to make a copy, but was not communicating with the computer.  As this was happening with my computer,  I listened to a YouTube video by Gregg Braden discussing his new book, the Spontaneous Healing of Belief.  He said “ancient texts and traditions teach that we are born with the power and ability to influence the world around us to bring peace to our families, our communities and between nations.  The spiritual mystery is how to find that power and implement it in our lives.  Many scientists are suggesting that the entire universe works very similar to the way a computer works.  The universe is based in consciousness; consciousness is the language that allows the universe to work the way it does.  Every computer language has a program that allows it to get things done.  Our computer appears to work the same way and the program is the power of our belief that rearranges the stuff; the atoms and the molecules in our world that relates to romance, relationships, abundance, healing, peace and success of our careers.” (YouTube video by Gregg Braden)  So, perhaps it was my consciousness that was disconnected, rather than the printer being disconnected from the computer.

We have all had experiences with some aspect of what Braden is talking about; as simple as spilling something all over yourself just as you are walking into a presentation, which immediately shifts your consciousness away from the anxiety you were feeling about performing then allowing you to deliver a great presentation.  We’ve had glimpses of this over and over again, but still don’t seem to be able to grasp how immense it really is.  Indigenous tribes lived this belief.  In another of Gregg Braden’s books, titled Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, he was describing going out into the desert with his Native American friend who was going to pray rain.  He described how his friend walked into the middle of the medicine wheel, called in the four directions, and then took himself into a deep meditation for several minutes.  Braden was surprised at the short time his friend spent praying and said to him, “I thought you were going to pray for rain.  His friend answered, “I said that I would pray rain.  If I had prayed for rain, it could never happen.”  His friend said that is how he was taught by the elders.  “When we ask for something to happen, we give power to what we do not have.  Prayers for healing empower the sickness.  Prayers for rain empower the drought.” Braden then asked, “If you didn’t pray for rain, then what did you do?”  His friend told him, “I began to have the feeling of what rain feels like.  I felt the feeling of rain on my body, and what it feels like to stand with my naked feet in the mud of our village plaza because there has been so much rain.  I smelled the smells of rain on the earthen walls in our village, and felt what it feels like to walk through fields of corn chest high because there has been so much rain.”  Braden stated his “explanation made perfect sense.  He was engaging all of his senses—the hidden powers of thought, feeling, and emotion that set us apart from all other forms of life—in addition to the senses of smell, sight, taste, and touch that connect us to the world.  In doing so, he was using the powerful and ancient language that “speaks” to nature.  He said “it was the next part of his explanation that touched my scientific mind, as well as my heart, and truly resonated with me.  His friend described how feelings of thanks and appreciation were the completion of the prayers, like the “amen” of Christianity.  Rather than giving thanks for what he created, he felt grateful for the opportunity to participate in creation.  He said, “Through our thanks, we honor all possibilities, while bringing the ones we choose into this world.” (Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer)

This is the power we all hold, the power of belief to participate in creating what we have in our lives.  There was a sentence in Braden’s book, Divine Matrix, which said if we observe an electron, just from the act of observing it, we are changing the electron’s properties and that changes our role from being an observer to a participant. (Braden, Divine Matrix).  As I read that line, I thought this is a great explanation of how our thoughts create our reality.

In A Course in Miracles, Lesson 7, it says, “I see only the past.” (A Course in Miracles, p. 11) How would we ‘see’ anything except as we have defined it in the past?  The Course states that “Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it.  Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time.  This first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first.  One of the examples they use to explain this concept is to look at a cup.  It lists many questions about the cup, including “what do you know about the cup except what you learned in the past?” (A Course in Miracles, p. 11)

I think this lesson could also apply to the concept about how consciousness is the language of the universe and through consciousness, it is the power of our belief that rearranges “the stuff, the atoms, the molecules our world is made of to create romance, relationships, abundance, healing, and peace.”  If we start praying in the way of the ancients, using all of our senses—“the hidden powers of thought, feeling, emotion as well as the senses of smell, sight, taste and touch,” we will be connecting and tuning in to the computer of the universe to create our world, our reality with an ability to see we already have everything we desire.  And the ‘amen’ at the end is to express our gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to participate.  It all ties together with blending science, religion and thousands of years of applied practice, especially with indigenous cultures.  In I Peter 4:7, it states, “But the end and culmination of all things has now come near; keep sound minded and self-restrained and alert therefore for (the practice of) prayer.” (Taken from the Amplified Bible, p. 1455) Doesn’t sound minded, self-restrained and alert sound like consciousness?

This is further explained in the book, Falling into the Arms of God by Megan Don, meditations with Teresa of Avila, in which she says, “It is a gift, said Teresa, to come into this prayer of quiet, but the more we are available to the presence of God through drawing ourselves into a place of interior recollection, the more we feel His presence.  We then more readily accept this remembrance of divine presence as our true state of being, and it can enter into our lives as a lived reality.” (Falling into the Arms of God, Megan Don, p. 140)  Again, this sounds like consciousness and using the power of belief to create, just as Gregg Braden’s friend walked into the medicine wheel circle and entered into a deep state of meditation, pulling himself inside. We, too, can enter this space to feel the presence of God and pray our desires into fruition.

Listen to this ending meditation from the book, Falling into the Arms of God, by closing your eyes and breathing deeply within until you are barely aware of your breath, becoming fully aware of your thoughts, feelings and emotion as well as your senses of sight, smell, taste and touch.  Breathe into the feeling and sensation of the intentions you are putting forth in the Despacho today:  Take another breath and hear this meditation: 

             “Quietly withdrawing from your external environment, come into the interior of your being.  Breathe deeply into your internal space—allow the state of calm to infuse your soul.  Allow the God within to rise and greet you, and let your soul be absorbed   in the great and tender love.  Keep yourself attentive to this          presence and let yourself see with the eyes of God.” (Falling into the Arms of God by Megan Don, p. 140)

Before you open your eyes, add your gratitude and appreciation to what you are praying today….

And so it is….. 

By Diane Donovan

The first sermon of 2012 and I am still reeling at the fact that I am actually existing in this particular year in time. I never thought I would live quite this long and I am still marveling at the experience of this life.  In fact, I marvel more at the everyday miracles today than ever before.  Every year, Reality with a capital R makes more of an impact on my consciousness.  This year, I am once again reading A Course in Miracles which begins on Day One of the year with having you look around at your world and say, “Nothing I see means anything.”  Day Two states, “I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me.” On Day Three it tells you to say, “I do not understand anything I see.” By Day Four you are ready to tackle, “These thoughts do not mean anything. Thoughts are like the things I see.” On Day Five, you say, “I am never upset for the reason I think” and on Day Six you are to repeat to your world, “I am upset because I see something that is not there. Finally, on Day Seven, today, you are to say, “I see only the past.”

If you have never done A Course in Miracles, The Workbook, what is supposed to happen is that you practice one lesson every day for a year, Now you can say that you have sort of done seven days in one day.  The book tells you specifically not to do more than one lesson a day and even tells you how many times to repeat each concept and for how long.  For example, you look around the room and say on the first day, “This chair does not mean anything” or “This sermon does not mean anything.”  The first part of ACIM lessons are aimed at undoing the way you perceive reality.

As I was driving back from lunch on Friday, talking on my cell phone, which by the way I was informed by my daughter that talking on the cell phone while driving is a $250 ticket,  but doesn’t leaving it on the  center console on speaker phone count as hands free? I was discussing with Cheryl a series of events in my life that spans back for at least seventeen years if not longer. The coincidences that arise in my life and often have included Cheryl are many times mysterious connections that basically seem impossible to explain. As we continued to converse, I said the whole of this life, the coincidences and experiences have finally reached an apex or tipping point for me because I can fully appreciate and see that reality as I have known it was an illusion and Reality that truly exists, the truth is talking to us in the signs and coincidences that have continued to appear to this very minute. The minute I said that statement, I felt like the middle of my head expanded and immediately smelled smoke! And no that is probably not a very good sign.

As I continue down the path of realizing that Reality is conversing with me, I said that we are always looking for a meaning to all these connections, a plot to the story of our life to emerge by studying the patterns.  It is like the conspiracy theorists that keeps attributing meanings, sometimes diabolical explanations for why things happen like they do in our world.  Not only have I wondered or even obsessed about this MEANING of my life but I seek to find the same type of plot for the novel about Scotland that I am writing. But what if there is no plot? There is no conspiracy. What if REALITY is creating in every moment depending on your focus and your perception right now? Ah now do you see how ACIM fits into this revelation. Everything I see has no meaning other than the meaning I give to it and I see only the past,” until I remake myself into the present.

How then, with REALITY trying to talk to us do we not even notice this conversation?  The answer is so easy. We are so busy making everything mean what we learned to make it mean in our past. Let me reiterate.  Reality gets missed while we think and think and think; create and create, create and create from old beliefs that we have already existing in the mind.

However, Reality is waiting patiently for us to be still, to listen and to quit explaining long enough to have a pure experience of Your SELF.

Close your eyes and listen to the tiny sounds in the room. Listen and do not explain them. Notice your body and do not explain it. Relax and take some deep breaths. Notice the air sounds and notice your feelings as your body relaxes.  What if this is all there is? What if this moment of silence, of air is all there is? In fact, this moment is all there is.  Take a deep breath. This moment is all there is.  Say this fact to yourself again and again, “What if this is all there is?”  How bad is this moment right now? If you think it is bad, then would that be a thought you are having?  Are you being tortured or is your mind torturing you?  Take another breath and notice the sounds around you. Relax. This moment is all there is.  What if there is no plot to this story? Instead there are moments of time that when looked upon created the story of your life. Each moment creating the next according to your focus and direction. 

Every day when I am working in my office, I experience the thoughts of the brains of my clients. As we sit on the comfortable furniture, the fan whirs in the background and the water fountain gurgles and yet as we talk about the drama and chaos of life, these tiny sounds are beyond conscious awareness along with the sun shining, the birds singing and every other momentary splendor of life. The miracles of REALITY are passing by unnoticed as the drama unfolds created by the mind and the mouth. The plots that we create are in fact blocking the miracles that already exist in every moment, blocking the splendor of the present and creating a reality of whatever story we tell. Then, we wonder why God does not give us what we want and God must be laughing because we are missing all that we are given.

And so we come to remaking the self, undoing what we have learned and becoming like a newly arrived baby on the planet, knowing nothing, fully surrendering to every moment in time. Oh yes, a plot will unfold as we experience every moment in time. It is our personal history of what happened each moment. But let’s experiment this week. Surrender to each moment as if it were the only moment you have and the last moment you have. Let go of all expectations and relax. Even while you are working, try to hear the sounds you normally tune out of awareness. Look for the glistening sunlight filtering through windows. Really feel the surfaces you engage like the seat of your car or keyboard of your computer. Smell the air and take long deep breaths. Place your mind fully on the present and quit letting your brain explain everything in your life. Tell your brain that instead of explanations, you wish for this week to be one of pure experience of what you had considered the mundane and already dismissed. Each moment of time is the only one you have. How much of the moment can you experience if your brain dismisses it? Once you have fully engaged the present moment, you meet REALITY.  It can be scary to give up your control dramas, your creation of chaos or meaning. It can truly be unsettling to just be, to surrender. But all this running around thinking and thinking is keeping you from noticing a miracle.

In Psalm 118:24 “This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Buddha said, “The secret of health for both mind and  body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

The miracle you are missing is that YOU are REALITY and YOU are creating the plot right now, this moment in time. Do you want to continue creating the same little chaotic reality that  you have been creating with your brain and mouth that would dismiss every moment of your life or would you like your life to be one moment after another of splendor? Right now, God is here and we have a miracle. Hold onto it and it will embrace you back.

by Diane Donovan

1 Corintians 13:4 (new Living Translation)

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud.”

I have been thinking about a black hole lately.  It happened because I am writing a book and the topic of the dreaded black hole arrived as part of my conversation about finding your heart when you speak. I came by own black hole naturally. My mother came from an alcoholic family, one of the youngest of thirteen children with her father and maybe a couple of older brothers seriously practicing alcoholics. And you might imagine that before the days of social programs, in the Great Depression, my mother was deprived of some of her basic needs in life.  Her life and mine have been shaped by those negative facts.  In fact, one of my cousins I never met except recently online told me that she was also one of thirteen children of one of my mother’s alcoholic brothers.  Since Mom avoided contact with the dysfunctional side of her family and is an extreme introvert, I missed meeting the whole clan but I did not miss the side effects of their problems. You see, I grew up with my mother’s black hole that she attempted to fill with working and staying married to her second husband. Security, I think was what she thought would fill her up. In her search for security, I found some of my neediness in being left alone.

My father had his own black hole.  His mother died when he was ten and his younger sister died in her early twenties.  I was his next biological female relative to appear on the scene and have been told I was his favorite child until he died when I was eleven years old.  Well, go back a few years because he too looked for security by leaving the country to make money and being obsessed with his favorite obsessions of any given day of which I was only one. My mother divorced him when I was about four years old. However,  I was one of the females who was supposed to fill his black hole he got from losing his mother and sister and he was one who helped to create mine.

Then, I grew up with this gaping black hole that I did not find unusual since I had never known life without it. I guess I just thought everyone went around as needy as I felt since everyone in my family seemed to do it.  I looked into the world, while cursed with constant physical ailments and pain and made it my mission in life to find someone to at least take away my emotional emptiness.

Now I ask you, “Doesn’t that sound attractive?”  The answer is that it actually is quite attractive to another human who feels like they can never be enough, who likes to confirm their failure by finding someone with whom they are guaranteed to fail and then use that failure as an excuse to give up and maybe self-medicate.  And I found him quite young, married him and we began our battle, me blaming him for not filling my black hole and him giving up every day because he knows black holes are a wasted cause and thinks maybe I am just stupid for not being able to avoid and numb out pain as effectively as he does. And as a bonus, I give him a perfect excuse to avoid me because I can never be happy with anything he does anyway since his life is obsessed with leaving. In therapy, we call it a symbiotic relationship.

You see, the black hole is a self fulfilling prophecy because only someone who cannot do intimacy is attracted to it and someone who can do intimacy is not.  Loneliness is permanent. Many times, after several or many failed attempts, people give up and unless that black hole gets taken care of relationships are going to be ugly so why not?

All throughout this blackness, I talked to God.  I begged, pleaded, cursed, looked around for alternative beliefs, gave up, took it back, took it to therapy, cheated on it, divorced it, dated it more than a few times, and became fearful of it.  I’m sure there is more but it all seems hazy now because as soon as I went back to college, I became more distracted from it and then I found the answer.

The first time I had a real personal transformation on the black hole was when I realized it was there.  It sounds stupid to think you do not know you have it but really as long as you think something will fix it, you are still projecting away from you in some way.  And like I said, I thought everyone was needy until they found the “right” person who would erase the neediness. But finally after many years of emptiness, I really looked inside my heart and right there in the center of my chest was a gaping black hole of emptiness.  That was when I finally heard the voice of God telling me to fill that hole with white light.  The advice I was given is to imagine that every time I cried I was creating a little open place for white light to enter, to send the light to that space and hold it there forever. And so I did it.  Since I was depressed quite often and could cry for weeks, I had lots of time and practice stuffing white light into my chest! It felt like I did this for years but in truth, I probably focused on it for a year in earnest and then randomly after that.  To this day, when I cry, I have a habit of pulling white light into my chest and filling myself with the Light of God.  At that time, I also became a minister with the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, perfected creating affirmations and continually monitored my mind and speech for negative language to remove or alter, a habit that I will always follow in this life since negativity from my brain will spontaneously erupt. However, the correction is fast these days.

Several years later after I was remarried to someone who was not chosen to fill a black hole, by the way, I was attending a seminar in which the facilitator took us inside our heart to encounter the pain that lives there. Much to my surprise, since I had not looked for a few years, I found only white light instead of a black hole. The black hole was gone and light had taken its place.

When you feel empty, how can someone or something fill up that space?  Really think about everyone in your family or life who may have tried to fill their lives with money, relationships, children, sex, whatever.  Think about the people who have given up trying, the walking dead or the actively pursuing death people in your life. 

The bottom line is that if you try to erase fear with fear, then fear will be your life. The only answer is to find the Light and fill yourself with love.  Love is free, always available and in fact is the only reality free from illusions.  All these things we look for to make us happy only work if we are already happy.  It seems like a paradox and yet the real paradox is the other point of view.  How can we find happiness with unhappiness or fear?  Fear begets fear.  Love begets love.

The mind has a habit of believing it will actually create love from fear.  The negativity that comes out of the mouth, that dwells in our thoughts are the food that feeds fear.  The only way to find love is to give up all attachments to fear in all its forms, especially negative language and anger.  These work only to reinforce our black hole and defenses.

Gandhi knew what he was saying when he said “be the change you want to see in the world”.  BE THE CHANGE.  Fill your voids with love.  Fill your life with the sound of love and use that eraser to erase your hate, anger and fear.  Remember that what a child needs when she is afraid is comfort.  Comfort yourself with love and love will find you. 

To whom do you wish to be attractive?  To those who are unable to experience love or to those who can?  How can you be surrounded by those who can experience love if you live in fear and hate?   Remove from yourself any remnant of sin. Let go of your attachment to negativity in any form even the form of self-righteous belief that you know anything whatsoever because what you think you know is probably a lie anyway.

Here is “The Situation” found in the book The Sufis:

“Humanity is asleep, concerned only with what is useless, living in a wrong world. Believing that one can excel this is only habit and usage, not religion. This “religion” is inept…

Do not prattle before the People of the Path, rather consume yourself. You have an inverted knowledge and religion if you are upside down in relation to Reality.

Man is wrapping his net around himself. A lion (the man of the Way) bursts his cage asunder.”  This was written in 1131 A.D. by Sufi master Sunai of Afghanistan, teacher of Rumi.

Remember the lesson of Praying Peace by James Twyman. You are always praying. Every word that comes out of your mouth is praying. Every emotion on which you dwell is praying.  Every thought on which you dwell is praying.  Connect right now to Reality, which is love. Anchor yourself to love. Pour light into every negative thought, feeling and blackness you may have within you and you will know the experience of alchemy, the transformation of the base metal of black fear into the shining golden light of truth and truth will be known as YOU and You will be Love.

By Cheryl Cornelius

We talk about the concept of Oneness almost every week which includes connecting mind, body and spirit within to God, as well as joining that intention with every other person on the planet.  I believe Oneness must begin within by integrating our masculine and feminine sides.  As young children growing up in an environment that includes other people – parents, grandparents, siblings, extended family, teachers, coaches, etc., we automatically internalized messages from all those external sources.  Some of those messages may have been negative and we continue to carry the impact of those messages into adulthood.  These messages are held inside, usually in an unconscious state and only come to the surface when we are emotionally triggered by something external.  The messages we heard about masculine and feminine could have been blatant or they could have been very subtle.  Growing up in families, we can also draw our own conclusions about our status based on how we perceived the feminine and masculine roles being played out.  You could see a mother as being weak, dependent, helpless and a father as strong, independent, powerful, etc., or vice versa.  These observations and messages mold and shape us into who we become or who we think we are now. 

My first awareness of this aspect of oneness came forward while I was pursuing my Master’s degree.  One assignment I had while studying Carl Jung was to complete a list of my masculine and feminine characteristics.  I wrote out the first list of characteristics and then was stumped about what to put on the other side.  I wrote a note to the professor stating, “I can’t seem to identify any of my masculine characteristics.”  She wrote back in red pen, “it appears that all of the characteristics you listed were masculine.”  I had assumed that the characteristics I had come up with were feminine, because I was a female.  That assignment was my first conscious awareness of the unbalance within between my masculine and feminine traits. 

In A Course in Miracles, it says, “there will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are.  It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound.  Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is.  When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on no assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt.  There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:  “I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.”  Yet in this learning is salvation born.  And What you are will tell you of Itself.”  (p. 660)

This statement is important to understand to release us from all the negative, derogatory words that we internalized from our past.  It will take you to a beginning and an openness to search and discover the Truth within.  Allow the spirit that dwells within to tell you about you.  When you have opened this space within, begin to examine your own thoughts about the masculine and feminine energies that co-exist at the deepest level.

From there, we seek to bring forth all the characteristics that we are to begin to mold into an integrated balance of feminine and masculine.  Anne Baring in her article titled “Balancing the Masculine and the Feminine” says, “when the masculine and the feminine are in balance, there is fluidity, relationship, a flow of energy, unity, totality…the feminine is a containing pattern of energy:  receptive, connecting, holding things in relationship to each other, the masculine is an expanding pattern energy:  seeking extension, expansion towards what is beyond….the feminine reflects the instinctual matrix and the feeling (heart) values of consciousness; the masculine reflects the questing, goal-defining, ordering, discrimination qualities of consciousness, generally associated with mind or intellect.  For millennia women have lived closer to the first pattern; men to the second.  But now, there is a deep impulse to balance these within ourselves and our culture.  There is an urgent need to temper the present over-emphasis on the masculine value with a conscious effort to integrate the feminine one.” (Scientific and Medical Network Magazine, December 1999)  She goes on to say that “the greatest flaw in patriarchal civilization has been the over-emphasis on the masculine archetype (identified with spirit) and the devaluation of the feminine one (identified with nature)….throughout this time, everything designated as “feminine” (nature, body, woman) was devalued and repressed, In the domain of religion, heretics were eliminated; diverse ways of relating directly to the transcendent were lost….this created a deep imbalance in the culture and in the human psyche….where there is no relationship and balance between the masculine and feminine principles, the masculine principle becomes pathologically exaggerated, inflated; the feminine pathologically diminished, inarticulate, ineffective.  The symptoms of a pathological masculine are rigidity, dogmatic inflexibility, omnipotence, and an obsession with or addiction to power and control….we can see this pathology reflected today in the ruthless values which govern the media, politics, and the technological drive of the modern world….The result?  Exhaustion, anxiety, depression, illness….no time or place for human relationships….no time for relationship with the dimension of spirit.  The water of life no longer flows.  Men and women and, above all, children, become the victims of this harsh, competitive, uncaring ethos:  women, in their desire to be accepted in a world ruled by men, and because the feminine value has no clear definition or recognition in our culture, are drawn to copy the pathological image of the masculine which itself incorporates fear of the feminine.”  (Scientific and Medical Network Magazine, December 1999 article by Anne Baring)

This article states quite eloquently the crisis state we have risen to because of the imbalance of masculine and feminine within ourselves, our world and our culture.  At the end of The Undiscovered Self, Jung asks, “Does the individual know that he (and she) is the make-weight that tips the scales…that infinitesimal unit on whom a world depends, and in whom, if we read the meaning of the Christian message aright, even God seeks his goal?”  And Jonathan Schell wrote the following words in his book, The Fate of the Earth, “Because everything we do and everything we are is in jeopardy, every person is the right person to act and every moment is the right moment to begin.”

In Galatians 3:28, it says, “There is (now no distinction) neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (Taken from the Amplified Bible)  We know this is true, we are all made in the image of Jesus Christ as is stated in the book of Genesis 1:27, So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Taken from the Amplified Bible)

That is the place we start from – knowing that we are all one and from there we must go inside to rebalance and claim the oneness of our masculine and feminine selves.

I believe we are the right person and I believe it is the right moment to begin.  It begins with each and every one of us to truly discover who we are, not who we were told we were by others.  It is time to open up the space within and allow the Truth to speak.  It is time for us to stop and focus on balancing all the powerful, positive masculine and feminine energies that are lying in wait to come forward now to change the course of our universe.

by Diane Donovan

“Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make music to our God on the harp. He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call.” - Psalm 147:7-9

This beautiful grateful scripture was quoted on Facebook this week for Thanksgiving.  I had already decided to devote this week’s Despacho to gratitude. It is said that gratitude creates abundance.  How would this be true?  Remember every time we create an intention that the wording of it helps to focus your attention on the result rather than the so-called lack in your life.  An intention that says, “I am not poor” focuses on poor. An intention that says, “Thank you for plenty of money” not only focuses on the result you wish but offers gratitude for what you already have. Acknowledging the universe or God for your blessings, opens your eyes and mind to all that is possible.  Gratitude opens you to receiving the abundance and blessings that already exist.

During Thanksgiving week, I am always so busy planning, buying and preparing food that it is easy for me to forget to stop and be grateful for my life, even to be grateful for all the food that we are going to consume and even waste!  But this year, since I have just returned from Italy, I am poignantly aware of how abundant life is in Las Vegas.  Whenever  and wherever I travel, I never cease to be amazed at how spoiled I have become living in a twenty-four hour town of excess. However, excess often does not lead one down a path of gratitude or it could be said that even if gratitude creates abundance, abundance does not necessarily create gratitude.  It seems that we can easily become a bottomless black hole of need and lack even if we have excess.

Peace is the ultimate indication of abundance and with peace arrives feelings of joy and gratitude.  Weirdly, peace is completely free and available always no matter the conditions. In the book Bearing Witness, A Zen Master’s Lessons in Making Peace by Bernie Glassman, you can read “powerful teaching stories that illustrate ways of making peace one moment at a time, no matter how difficult things appear to be.”  The book takes one on the path to peace, away from the denial of what is perceived as awful. He takes people on street retreats with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to Auschwitz to meditate and places where one can “Bear Witness” to all that is.  He states that denial looks at the world and says “this is not me.” He asks us to look at all of the abundance and misery together and say “I am that.”

 We often talk about this subject whenever we are at the point of the lessons in The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking or in The Moses Code (books by James Twyman) when we are asked to look at the world and say to everything we see. “I am that.”  As soon as we see something we are accustomed to avoiding or ignoring, we are immediately tempted to turn away, dismiss the offending situation or person and to say, “I am not that.”  Thus the book gets its name, Bearing Witness. Whenever you bear witness to all that is, you become instantly abundant. Healing occurs once you accept what it is that you deny because otherwise it sits outside a gate waiting to destroy a peace of mind that depends on ignoring all that is.

Glassman says, “What does it mean to make the fragments whole. making whole means seeing that each piece is the whole. Everything as it is, is the whole, Mother Teresa said that everywhere she looked, she saw Christ. The sick, the dying, the poor, the maimed were all Christ, and she took care of Christ wherever she went.” She included everyone, rich and poor alike and it did not escape her notice that the rich were sometimes in more need of peace and love than the poorest and sickest of those she encountered. Who among us can escape all the potential suffering of the world?  And yet we have a choice to discover peace in all the moments of our life with gratitude.  Gratitude creates abundance. Gratitude also creates a focus of peace.

In the book Praying Peace (by James Twyman in conversation with Gregg Braden and Doreen Virtue)  there are” seven pathways to peace”:

1. “You are always praying; thought itself is prayer.” (as are your words)

2. “Whatever you focus your mind on, increases.

3. To change the world, change your thoughts about the world.

4. If you want to experience peace — become peace.

5. Peace is always present, though  it is sometimes hidden.

6. Love is the only force in the universe.

7. The world is already healed.”

Whenever you write an intention,  meditating on these paths to peace can help you acknowledge gratitude, to formulate your words, to change your thoughts and ultimately guide your actions. 

It is actually quite effortless for some us to create negativity.  I am not saying this to be critical as I have been blessed with one of the most instantaneously negative minds that I have ever met.  Add to a negatively focused brain, which believes it supremely important to notice all that is wrong in the world, the fact that nobody is happy when life seems to refuse to give us what we want. It is at that point that peace of mind can become quite illusive. However, it is not peace that is illusive. Peace is excluded from view by disappointing emotions like fear or experiences like grief.  If you have every played peek-a-boo with a baby, you know that the baby before she reaches a certain age thinks you have disappeared when you hide. Then, one day, she knows you are still there even if you are blocked from view. Finding peace requires us to mature to the stage where we are aware that peace exists even if at a moment in time our mind or the world appears to hide it from our view. Really, every time we do not get our way we are in danger of having a tantrum that blocks peace from view. In fact, it is a good idea to quickly take a long deep breath when you are faced with disappointment and notice peace at the same time you are unhappy. In that way you grow past that early stage of development in which nothing is right if all is not right for you. In that moment of time when you acknowledge the truth of peace, you become One with all that is, grateful and open to the abundance of being connected to the love that “is the only force in the universe.” Peace exists always and the way to “experience peace” is to “become peace.”

In Glassman’s book, you can find sixteen peacemaker vows that if followed can help to guide you in a life of peace. They are:

“I vow to be oneness.

I vow to be diversity

I vow to be harmony.

I vow to penetrate the unknown.

I vow to bear witness.” (and they get harder)

“I vow to heal myself and others.

I vow not to kill.

I vow not to steal.” (and harder)

I vow not to be greedy.

I vow not to tell lies.

I vow not to be ignorant.” (and even harder)

“I vow not to talk about others’ errors and faults.

I vow not to elevate myself by blaming others.

I vow not to be stingy.

I vow not to speak ill of myself and others.”

Although some of these vows include the word not, which tends to focus your mind on the negative word following,  I like to read them to remind me of temptations that arise in my life every day that create lack.  Rules exist to remind us of behaviors that will bring us more grief in life. Greed, for example is a belief in lack rather than the truth of abundance.

Today look within yourself and find all the gratitude in your heart for all that is. Vow to live a life of peace.  Find your abundance and find any denial that you have to all that is. Embracing the whole will lead you to peace. At one point while on the Camino in Italy, our angelic guide Patricia said to us that while you are on the path, you find out that you do not need much, a rucksack, a change of clothes, something to eat and drink is all you really need to be on the road. She told us to think about those big suitcases we were lugging from hotel to hotel, which I might add I cursed almost every day, about what a burden they are on the path to oneness with God that we were taking. In that one statement, she sums up the message of peace and abundance. Sometimes a simple bowl of hot soup on a cold day is the most abundant gift in the world.

In the words of the Sufi poet Rumi:

“In love with him, my soul,

Lives the subtlest of passions,

Lives like a gypsy.

Each day a different house,

Each night under the stars.”

Our challenge in our busy, abundant, excessive life is remembering peace, embracing simplicity, removing denial,  and remaining connected to love. Gratitude creates abundance.

Today, I am grateful for You.