WELCOME 5

p. 39-41

Just imagine you are a soul, a spiritual being without a body, and you are learning and growing. Paradoxically, even though you are deeply aware of your Oneness with God and all creation, you continue to have your Unique identity as the expression of God. You also notice all these beings around you as being unique expressions of God as well. It is with a sense of wonder that you continue your learning in this realm of Spirit.

Then you realize it is time to take form again, to enter into a different stage of learning that requires you to have the physical body. Even though there are many planets and galaxies that you could inhabit, your trip now is to Planet Earth, and perhaps you have been there times before. As you prepare for your journey outward, you allow yourself to become aware of the lessons you need to learn in this particular lifetime. This is your souls agenda and your soul, your spiritual nature, will work on creating circumstances that will allow these lessons to be learned.

Of course, your question might be now “Why do we have to do this anyway?” 

There is no answer to this question that will completely satisfy the intellect. The only explanations will be in the form for poetry for metaphor, so try not to get bogged down in figuring it all out. The process of life and creation is about becoming more and more aware all the love that you are, and knowing that your truth rests in the realm of nonverbal, mystery.

Try these on for size:

“If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshipped.”

― Evelyn Underhill

OR 

If the human brain were so simple

That we could understand it,

We would be so simple

That we couldn’t. Emerson M. Pugh 

or

We Are All God Playing Hide And Seek

Awaken From Hide And Seek

“So then, here’s the drama. My metaphysics, let me be perfectly frank with you, is that there is the central Self, you can call it God, you can call it anything you like, and it’s All of Us. It’s playing all the parts of All Beings whatsoever everywhere and anywhere. 

And it’s playing the game of hide and seek with itself. It gets lost, it gets involved in the farthest-out adventures, but in the end it always wakes up and comes back to itself. And when you’re ready to wake up, you’re going to wake up, and if you’re not ready you’re going to stay pretending that you’re just a ‘poor little me.” Alan Watts

or

“Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness… No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question…At any rate, they forbid our premature closing of accounts with reality.”  William James

**************

See, we have to “hang loose” with all of this. If we do not, if we get sticky or clingy, we are again going to become lost in this little personal identity we think we are. When we say, “Let go, let God,” we can be speaking in the words of duality, that ‘I am here and God is out there someplace’, or we can be affirming a deeper truth that we are letting go of our attachment to and our identity with our limited personality self, and claiming our Divine Truth of Oneness with all beings. 

We all know the truth of our Being, that we are One with unconditional love, that we are Divine children of God, but not only do we forget that quite often, we also don’t quite believe it. That’s why the mind is always hunting around for “proof” or a better understanding.

One of the keys here is, if we allow ourselves to become quiet enough, to become still enough, we can lovingly “sink into” that knowing, allow it to become more real to us. 

If you were just to take a moment now and close your eyes, and say these words (or your own version of them), “I am a Divine Child of God, unconditionally loved,” and just let you heart open to that, breathe it into you. Just that, you will be in your knowing.

(“You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”)

What happens next, to most of us, is that we open our eyes, and we seem to lose it. “That was nice,” we say, “but here I am back to where I was.” 

Now this is not about judgment or blame, but what is happening here is that as soon as we open our eyes, we break the connection with our knowing and our identification with our Divine selves because we immediately identify with the world of our physical senses, our memory and the various roles we are playing. WE DO NOT DO THIS ON PURPOSE, but here we are.

You will notifice however, the more often we do little exercises like these, the more we seek out the stillness in prayer and meditation, the more deeper becomes our knowing. We remember who we are more often, and therefore remember who others are as well. We do not become so upset with our forgetfulness; we just continually come back to our truth. 

**********

I love you all, and I am so grateful for your presence, and especially grateful for you. prayers, love and support during this time. 

Have a peaceful week.

WELCOME 4

P. 37-39

We began exploring the question—-“What are we doing here? What are we getting? What do we hope to accomplish?” 

Difficult to answer because there is no answer on an intellectual plane.

Perhaps it comes down very simply to an expanded awareness of choice—acting out of my divine self—or not….

As simple as it seems, gathering together each Sunday morning, sharing our energies, being consciously aware that we have a choice as to the level of our vibration.

I realize that is a “situational” response. Our mid might think, “Well, of course, it’s way to experience my higher connection when I’m in the chapel at Unity on Sunday morning, but what about family dinner, what about work tomorrow, etc.? 

After a time it becomes part of my awareness, part of my realization that the only thing that is getting in the way of me experiencing higher consciousness in other circumstances is my thinking, my limited thinking that says, “You can’t experience yourself as a high being in this situation because….”

Obviously we are going beyond words and ideas here. We are speaking of experience. I’m reflecting that there are numerous occasions when I become so caught up in what we are exploring that I “forget” I am in a Sunday School class at Unity; I am simply in this experience — on a material level one of us is speaking and others are listening, but on a deeper level we are all experiencing a growth in Oneness together. We are not “thinking about experiencing Oneness,” we are IN the experience.  I am so grateful to you for that!!!!

We are hearing and seeing differently. We are choosing to hear and see differently.

The philosopher Ouspensky once observed, “I found that the chief difficulty for most people is to realize they really heard new things, that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They have ceased to hope and believe that there might be anything new.“

We certainly do not do this consciously, but I believe this is a great description of how we disengage ourselves from the process. We remain intellectually involved but the Spirit is bypassed. 

I never quite thought of this before, but the mind, what Marianne Williamson calls the “mortal mind,” our intellect, loves to label and classify. It loves to put ideas and experiences into little file boxes. The mind calls this “understanding,” but it is really a form of control. 

So when a new idea comes along, the mind tries to figure out how it fits with what it already knows, “Oh, this idea is just like…” And so instead of becoming a new concept that stretches us, it just becomes another card in the catalogue.

Now the work we are doing here, almost by its very nature, will not allow us to do that. The “downside” is that as we take in or absorb these new insights, there is a period of uncomfortableness as we get used to looking at life and ourselves in a different way. Margo calls this “going through awkward.” It is a natural part of the process. Just like learning any new behavior or attitude (swimming, riding a bicycle, working with a new form of meditation) there is going to be a period of time necessary for us to become acclimated to this new expression of energy.(Like a mountain climber, going certain distance, then waiting a day or so as the body becomes acclimated to this new altitude. The difficulty here is that the ego likes to jump in and try to find a way to get out of the uncomfortableness. The ego might even attempt to convince us that there is something wrong with what we are doing because it is making us feel uncomfortable!

*****************

The book used the example of associating one’s worth with material wealth and that is certainly a paradigm we have all been touched by, but most of us have been affected by this idea more than you might think. In the past and perhaps even into the present, having material wealth has been looked upon as a blessing (from God), and therefore, being poor, in a material way, was looked upon as “you must have done something wrong.” As untrue as that might be, our society still clings to those limited ideas as having some truth.

There are many other ways of assessing one’s worth—job, social status, athletic ability, etc. None of these are who you are. If you have them, enjoy them, make use of them, but don’t et sucked in to thinking they make you worthy.

YOU ARE WORTHY BECAUSE YOU ARE  A DIVINE CHILD OF GOD. 

You can’t do anything to earn it or achieve it; it is the truth of who you are.

When we perceive ourselves with they eyes of the Christ, we automatically see others that way as well. It is interesting if we say the words and mean them “I see you with the eyes of the Christ” our physical sight might not be changed, weight still have some judgments lurking around in our minds, but we are almost forced to look deeper then the roles a person plays, the attitudes their personality self projects or the external experience they present.

“When you attend to the worth of your fellows, you do something very simple: You know who they are. You know who they are in truth. You know what they are in this manifestation and you know how they serve at this level of consciousness that they are attending to. Now we give you this not only as an example, but as a way of knowing something in your consciousness. We do not give you these words to parrot, to recite, we give you these words to claim, to claim, “to claim. When you claim something, you call it into being. You say welcome to the new possibilities that are inherent in the claim, and the claim brings to you the transformation that you require. When you claim to a fellow, “I know who you are, I know what you are, I know how you serve,” you are not just recognizing something, you are instilling in them energetically the creation that we work with in this text.”

***********

“The language that we work with with you has been encoded to impress upon each energy field a system of transformation that will align you to your Christed Self. Now, this must be done in intent, yes, but you can witness the Christ in a fellow, “I know who you are,” and decide for them that this is their truth. You don’t do this over the objections of anybody, you do not do this in opposition of anything, you are simply witnessing and claiming what is eternally so.”

“We have been talking about this whole process as a transformation, an evolution of consciousness. But maybe it's less a matter of you evolving or changing then of simply acknowledging who we already are.” Ram Dass

And so as happens so often, we come full circle, but paradoxically we are at a different “place” than where we started from.

Peace

WELCOME 3

Becoming ready to receive (on a deeper level) the Truth of who you are requires both the work of surrender and the conscious clearing away/releasing of all that might get in the way.

This morning we shared a short meditation on increasing our capacity for taking in/receiving/realizing unconditional love. One of the images shared reminded of that great line from Jaws—“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” 

We all got the opportunity to expand our inner awareness and our inner capacity for love. A thimble can be completely full of water, but so can a gallon jug. If I keep thinking of myself as a thimble, I might be able to experience a “fullness” of love, but that is always going to be limited by my perception of my capacity. 

Wasn’t there a children’s story a few years ago called, I Love you to the Moon (and back?). That is a wonderful example of a child opening up to the infinite capacity for loving.

All of this might sound quite rudimentary and perhaps even a little simplistic, but this stage of the work brings us to the essence of it all. You see, first of all, the mind cannot comprehend unconditional love so in order to be in my KNOWING of it, I must be in the energy of the heart, what teacher of mine calls LOVE/WISDOM. I am being asked to honor and nurture that knowing which goes beyond my mind and five senses, and yet is just as real and just as powerful aa any other kind of knowing. Secondly, we are asked to examine our perception of our WORTH. Of course, for most of us, if we asked, “Am I worthy of unconditional love?” We would probably answer, “Yes, of course.” But in reality if that assessment were true, we would all be in bliss all the time! This is not a judgment; it is an awareness. Now we could spend a lot of time/perhaps a few lifetimes, attempting to “root out” all those ideas, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs which get in the way and cloud my perception of the truth, but the solution offered here is much more simple—focus and concentrate on continually opening yourself to Love. Continue affirming the Truth of who you are. 

“Word, I am Word through my body; word I am word through all that I see before me. I know who I am, I know hat I am, I know how I serve. I am here; I am here; I am here.” 

“Now the listening we do with you is to hear you when you ask us for guidance, “Can I know myself in a new way?” “Can I attend to myself in a better way than I have?” And of course, we always say yes. Yes, you can. Yes, you are allowed. But you must claim and welcome what you claim. When you welcome something to you, it allows itself to incorporate itself as you, as part of your frequency that can then be brought into manifestation.”

Again, this might seem obvious or overly simple, but the fact is that having the package is not enough, you need to open it/give yourself the opportunity to experience the love that you are. As Henri Nouen expressed, “You can’t open the package with closed fists.” In other words, your hands/your spirit has to be open, unencumbered, to be able to open the package/to receive the love within.

Or to use a biblical image, it’s not enough to have a wedding garment, you’ve got to put it on. You need to acknowledge your WORTHINESS. Even if there is still some unworthiness lurking around in there, don’t feed it; embrace the worthy knowing that already exists, even if it does not seem to be perfect and complete. 

“You call something to you, you claim something in your creations that you believe you need, that you require for your growth, and it would like to come. It would like to come to you and be an aspect of your life. But it does not come and you do not know why. We will explain this to you very simply: It has been left outside the front door, in a manner of speaking, and you have not opened the door to receive it, to say “Welcome,” to invite it in.”

“Now the doubt of worth, we say, is claimed by you as well. If you are what you say you are, you are your doubts and fears as you decide them. If you wish to relinquish them, you have the opportunity to do so here. The requirements for this are very simple. Change your mind. Change your mind. Change your mind and decide that you can have what you say that you need. Open the door and say, “Welcome.” Say welcome to what can be, what you may allow, what you may be in accord with in a new way.”

There was a beautiful sharing this morning about an experience of “newness/freshness” that just seemed to happen. It was simply a matter of walking down a different street/taking a different route, and having an experience of “the light going on.” There was a marked difference in the way the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the squirrels were playing. Now what the difference was would be hard to put into words, but there was a deeper sense of the beauty and wonder that is all around; a deeper sense of connectedness.

I believe these moments are given to us every once in a while as a way of our soul reminding us—this is the way things truly are and you can realize this when your (inner) eyes are open.

I as reminded of that beautiful piece of music by the Moody Blues called The Balance. You might want to Google or YouTube it for a listen. Here are the words;

After he had journeyed,

And his feet were sore,

And he was tired,

He came upon an orange grove

And he rested.

And he lay in the cool,

And while he rested, 

He took to himself an orange

And tasted it,

And it was good.

And he felt the earth to his spine,

And he asked,

And he saw the tree above him,

And the stars,

And the veins in the leaf,

And the light,

And the balance.

And he saw magnificent perfection,

Whereon he thought of himself in balance,

And he knew he was.

Just open your eyes, and realize,

The way it's always been.

Just open your mind and you will find 

The way it's always been.

Just open your heart and that's a start

And he thought of those he angered,

For he was not a violent man,

And he thought of those he hurt

For he was not a cruel man

And he thought of those he frightened

For he was not a evil man,

And he understood.

He understood himself.

Upon this

He saw that when he was of anger 

Or knew hurt 

Or felt fear,

It was because he was not understanding.

And he learned, compassion.

And with his eye of compassion

He saw his enemies

Like unto himself,

And he learned love.

Then, he was answered.

Just open your eyes, and realize,

The way it's always been.

Just open your mind and you will find 

The way it's always been.

Just open your heart and that's a start

Just open your eyes, and realize,

The way it's always been.

Just open your mind and you will find 

The way it's always been.

Just open your heart and that's a start

I often think, “How many times do I have to hear this stuff?” And, of course the answer is, “Until you get it; until you don’t need to hear it anymore.” 

So here we are, not only hearing the same things in different ways, but also realizing the depth of our hearing, the scope of our knowing and the scope of our sense of worth is continuing to deepen in this process as we all journey on and “walk each other home.”

Peace. 

WELCOME 2

GREAT GROUP, SUNDAY. THANK YOU ALL.

What we are doing, perhaps on an unconscious level is we are getting in touch with that deep yearning within our souls and we are beginning to address that yearning from its truth, rather than all the peripheral things we stuff ourselves with to attempt to assuage the sense of separation, anxiety and lack of self love we all experience. 

In one of my favorite quotes from Augustine, “You have made our hearts restless and they will never rest until the rest in Thee.”

In the past what we have done is either push those uncomfortable feelings away, or we have attempted to smother them with food, alcohol/drugs, material goods, etc. Today we are not pushing them away, ignoring them or trying to cover them up. We are opening ourselves to be conscious of our longing and allow it to be healed/filled/erased/transformed.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anias Nin

Even though the guides are doing this work with us it is still not a passive endeavor. We say, “Welcome,“ yes, but that means is that we open our arms, create a sense of receptivity and openness to let the light, the grace, come in. 

The mind does not know what this means because we are literally standing on the edge of transformation, and we do not know where that is going to take us. We are in mystery and paradox again. The Divine self already knows who he/she is, and nothing an change that or get away from that truth, BUT there is still much that we cling to in our human consciousness that blocks us from realizing the truth of who we are. Fear, judgment, begin right, guilt, self-blame, to name a few.

In some ways there is a part of us that still thinks it needs those things. Who/what would I be without them? And because we do not have an answer to that question, we are fearful and reluctant to “take the plunge.” 

“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” ― Patrick Overton

**************

I am summarizing from a later portion of this book, not to jump ahead so much as to recognize the universality and coherence of this teaching.

You often think of your history as being what has happened to you in your life, but then you become attached to the circumstances either through fear(of them happening again), or guilt, or the “coulda ,woulda, shoulda” syndrome. 

What we are claiming here together in this moment is that you are NOT your history and because you are NOT your history you do not have to be ruled or governed by it.

As we talked about a similar subject in class, I was reminded of that wonderful maxim from ACIM—“When you bring the past into the present, you create a future just like your past.”

When we let go of who we think we are, we open ourselves to the possibility to be who we truly are.

Whatever you “have” or claim or are aware of as parts of yourself, whatever it is you perceive, then it is yours, and you must take responsibility and ownership of it before you can release it. (I recall when I first entered recovery I realized I had to accept that this thing called alcoholism. That it was mine; I could not blame anyone or anything else for it. It was only then that I could surrender, and put it in God’s hands. It’s another one of those paradoxical things. It has to be yours; you need to claiming as yours before you can let it go.

   

As we examine and become more aware of the self-imposed illusions we cling to, we can also begin to ask ourselves, “What am I holding onto that no longe serves me?” We might be surprised as we discover how much useless trash, how many outdated roles or behaviors we are still lugging around.

There’s a great scene from the movie The Mission : Robert DeNiro killed his bother in a duel, and as part of his penance he had to drag around this net filled with huge pieces of old rusty armor. At one point he was climbing this cliff wall with some native people, and he was just about ready to fall off when one of the natives cut the rope the was holding all this junk. DeNiro couldn’t even do that for himself—he was so attached to his guilt and/or punishment that he did not even realize that he could let it go (even to save his own life).

It is very difficult to become aware that we have made choices in our lives that have produced pain and negativity, and we are not ignoring this. What produces the difficulty, the stuckness, is our holding onto it. For instance when I feel badly about hurting another, even inadvertently, I might choose to hold onto the pain of guilt (until I feel the debt is paid—and of course it never is).  

Here is a direct passage from the book, p. 122-23

I am claiming my worth as the one who made the error so that I may rectify the mistake.” If you don’t claim the error, how can you make a new choice? How can you decide anew when you are pretending you are not who you are?

Now understand this please: You are not an error. We don’t say that you are an error. But you have made mistakes in your judgment because you have been frightened of yourselves and you have given permission to the world to tell you who and what you are. “I am the woman who lies.” “I am the man who cheats at cards,” “Who is an infidel,” “Who is boastful.” Whatever it is you claim as yourself that you wish to relinquish you may, but you must release the need for these things. There is nothing that you have created in your life, including your pain, that you have not chosen for one reason or another.

Now, we do not say that things don’t happen to you that cause pain. We are talking about holding on to pain, cherishing pain, going into agreement with pain as who you are, and “that is not a requirement for being alive unless you make it so.

“I no longer wish to be alone,” you may say. But you have created a life of loneliness and, in fact, cannot imagine another way of being seen. “I have created a life by myself. I cherish my time alone. When somebody comes to visit, I cannot wait for them to leave” may be closer to the truth for you. But you pretend you want a partner, or a lover, or somebody who comes and stays because you think you should have this.

Now, you may have this if you like, but you will not claim it as long as you are claiming what you’ve had is what you want. And understand, everybody, please, what you have is what you want because you accept it as so. You may change your mind, you know. You are allowed to change your mind and to decide anew any day of the week.

"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain." Bartholomew. 

We are not suggesting that you deliberately create pain or even that pain is wrong. The predicament is that we somehow become attached to the pain, we identify with it, we think it is a necessary part of who we are. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we were to be that aware of joy rather than pain? 

**************

In some ways, by our participation in this work, we are letting this transformation happen, we are also making it happen.

**************

What we are doing, perhaps on an unconscious level is we are getting in touch with that deep yearning within our souls and we are beginning to address that yearning from its truth, rather than all the peripheral things we stuff ourselves with to attempt to assuage the sense of separation, anxiety and lack of self love we all experience. 

In one of my favorite quotes from Augustine, “You have made our hearts restless and they will never rest until the rest in Thee.”

In the past what we have done is either push those uncomfortable feelings away, or we have attempted to smother them with food, alcohol/drugs, material goods, etc. Today we are not pushing them away, ignoring them or trying to cover them up. We are opening ourselves to be conscious of our longing and allow it to be healed/filled/erased/transformed.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anias Nin

Even though the guides are doing this work with us it is still not a passive endeavor. We say, “Welcome,“ yes, but that means is that we open our arms, create a sense of receptivity and openness to let the light, the grace, come in. 

The mind does not know what this means because we are literally standing on the edge of transformation, and we do not know where that is going to take us. We are in mystery and paradox again. The Divine self already knows who he/she is, and nothing an change that or get away from that truth, BUT there is still much that we cling to in our human consciousness that blocks us from realizing the truth of who we are. Fear, judgment, begin right, guilt, self-blame, to name a few.

In some ways there is a part of us that still thinks it needs those things. Who/what would I be without them? And because we do not have an answer to that question, we are fearful and reluctant to “take the plunge.” 

“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” ― Patrick Overton

**************

I am summarizing from a later portion of this book, not to jump ahead so much as to recognize the universality and coherence of this teaching.

You often think of your history as being what has happened to you in your life, but then you become attached to the circumstances either through fear(of them happening again), or guilt, or the “coulda ,woulda, shoulda” syndrome. 

What we are claiming here together in this moment is that you are NOT your history and because you are NOT your history you do not have to be ruled or governed by it.

As we talked about a similar subject in class, I was reminded of that wonderful maxim from ACIM—“When you bring the past into the present, you create a future just like your past.”

When we let go of who we think we are, we open ourselves to the possibility to be who we truly are.

Whatever you “have” or claim or are aware of as parts of yourself, whatever it is you perceive, then it is yours, and you must take responsibility and ownership of it before you can release it. (I recall when I first entered recovery I realized I had to accept that this thing called alcoholism. That it was mine; I could not blame anyone or anything else for it. It was only then that I could surrender, and put it in God’s hands. It’s another one of those paradoxical things. It has to be yours; you need to claiming as yours before you can let it go.

   

As we examine and become more aware of the self-imposed illusions we cling to, we can also begin to ask ourselves, “What am I holding onto that no longe serves me?” We might be surprised as we discover how much useless trash, how many outdated roles or behaviors we are still lugging around.

There’s a great scene from the movie The Mission : Robert DeNiro killed his bother in a duel, and as part of his penance he had to drag around this net filled with huge pieces of old rusty armor. At one point he was climbing this cliff wall with some native people, and he was just about ready to fall off when one of the natives cut the rope the was holding all this junk. DeNiro couldn’t even do that for himself—he was so attached to his guilt and/or punishment that he did not even realize that he could let it go (even to save his own life).

It is very difficult to become aware that we have made choices in our lives that have produced pain and negativity, and we are not ignoring this. What produces the difficulty, the stuckness, is our holding onto it. For instance when I feel badly about hurting another, even inadvertently, I might choose to hold onto the pain of guilt (until I feel the debt is paid—and of course it never is).  

Here is a direct passage from the book, p. 122-23

I am claiming my worth as the one who made the error so that I may rectify the mistake.” If you don’t claim the error, how can you make a new choice? How can you decide anew when you are pretending you are not who you are?

Now understand this please: You are not an error. We don’t say that you are an error. But you have made mistakes in your judgment because you have been frightened of yourselves and you have given permission to the world to tell you who and what you are. “I am the woman who lies.” “I am the man who cheats at cards,” “Who is an infidel,” “Who is boastful.” Whatever it is you claim as yourself that you wish to relinquish you may, but you must release the need for these things. There is nothing that you have created in your life, including your pain, that you have not chosen for one reason or another.

Now, we do not say that things don’t happen to you that cause pain. We are talking about holding on to pain, cherishing pain, going into agreement with pain as who you are, and “that is not a requirement for being alive unless you make it so.

“I no longer wish to be alone,” you may say. But you have created a life of loneliness and, in fact, cannot imagine another way of being seen. “I have created a life by myself. I cherish my time alone. When somebody comes to visit, I cannot wait for them to leave” may be closer to the truth for you. But you pretend you want a partner, or a lover, or somebody who comes and stays because you think you should have this.

Now, you may have this if you like, but you will not claim it as long as you are claiming what you’ve had is what you want. And understand, everybody, please, what you have is what you want because you accept it as so. You may change your mind, you know. You are allowed to change your mind and to decide anew any day of the week.

"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain." Bartholomew. 

We are not suggesting that you deliberately create pain or even that pain is wrong. The predicament is that we somehow become attached to the pain, we identify with it, we think it is a necessary part of who we are. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we were to be that aware of joy rather than pain? 

**************

In some ways, by our participation in this work, we are letting this transformation happen, we are also making it happen.

**************