WELCOME 17

P.57-59

Why so long on this chapter called WELCOME?

Those who are dedicated to a spiritual path can still fall into the illusion of doing it all by yourself. Certainly there is paradox this learning. I heard a wise person once say “The path is essentially a very lonely one because old n one can do it for you. The path is simply you and God.” The other side is also true. There guides and light workers who are also leading us along the path. Not only that, but since we are all One there is no such thing really as our individual efforts. Everything you do affects all other beings.

So I believe that one of our learnings through this chapter is the realization that no matter what we might be feeling emotionally, no matter what challenges may present themselves, that we are never alone; we can never be alone.

As we were speaking together Sunday morning I became aware that despite all of our efforts to avoid thinking in terms of separateness, that we might still create a hierarchy in our minds between the guides and ourselves. That somehow or another, because they seem to know more than we do, that they are better or smarter than we are.

A bird cannot swim because the medium that it functions in is the air rather than the water. That does not make the bird better than the fish. Using this metaphor each one of us could probably learn to develop a functional participation on various planes of existence. Swimming, flying, walking. One is not better than the other, simply different.

If a being lives on one particular plane of existence, let us say the air, in this case, then any other planes of existence such as earth and water not only would be totally foreign but essentially nonexistent. So for some of the guides, at least, we are introducing them to a working in existence on planet Earth that for some or perhaps all of them this is a milieux which they have no cognizant awareness.

In one of the books the guides express themselves as being a collection of beings some of who who have had physical form, but we are never told if that physical form existed on what we call planet Earth or some other physical realm. So as the book states the guides are learning from us as well as our learning from them.

That is still only one form of perception, that there is some form of separation between ourselves and the guides for some sort of distinction.

I recall come across a book by a psychic channeler whose name was Pat Rodegst called Emmanuel’s Book. I was impressed because my buddy Ram Dass wrote introduction so I assumed this was not some flaky version of somebody's perception of Lala land. One of the items that he mentioned was whether or not this channeled being was a separate entity or simply a part of Pat’s higher consciousness essentially makes no difference. The most important reality that we are dealing with is the information that flows forth and our ability to align ourselves to that information.

Recently in following some electronic pathways, I discovered some sayings that were attributed to someone or something called “Fake Buddha.” What I discern from these statements was they are quite Buddhist in nature but that they were not historical quotes from the Buddha himself. One of my favorites is, “Do not believe anything I tell; do not believe anything anybody else tells you even if they seem to be in authority. Believe only what resonates with the truth of your heart.” Now one of the things that is interesting about that is that you can only really believe what resonates with the truth of your heart and nothing else. You can pretend to believe something else and act upon what somebody else told you as being the truth, but  you can only truly resonated with or believe that which is in alignment with the frequency of your own heart. In the book’s language that means “being in your knowing.” 

So we are encouraged here, in a subtle way, to learn to listen to the the promptings of our own heart, sometimes what we might refer to as the intuitive heart. We can describe that information that we receive and attribute it to anyone or anything we choose: Buddha, Jesus, or the guides or our own intuition, but again, for the moment, it is being able to discern what rings true for us within our own being.

I suggested that might be one of the practices we take with us this week: taking a moment anytime we think about it, to tune into our intuitive or spiritual self, to notice if there is anything it needs to communicate to us. Or if we become troubled or confused, for any reason, to go within to seek the answer or the solution.

In last week's summary I jumped the gun a little bit and talked about wonder so I am not going to repeat that here.

An aspect of wonder, however, that was not emphasized, was the whole sense of being able to perceive and respond to each moment of life with a sense of clarity and newness.

As Jesus is said in the book of Revelations, “Behold I make all things new.”

 What would it be like if I approached each moment each person with the sense of wonder and newness?

You see what usually happens when I am involved in a familiar task, let's say a repetitive one, doing the dishes driving, my car, etc. is that I get on “automatic pilot.” I'm just doing things without thinking. Now, obviously, sometimes that might be useful, but you often when I'm performing a task or interacting with another human being, I bring with me whole boatload of baggage and past experience. So the “you” I am relating to is not who you are in this moment, or even your perception of yourself at this moment. It is my perception of you based on all sorts of other past experiences. When I bring all of that baggage to a personal encounter or even a physical task, I am denying myself any possibility of experiencing newness or wonder. Essentially, without me realizing it, I am living in the past of my own creation.

So here we are challenged again. Challenged in terms of our awareness of everyday events and even pushing that further, because in these moments of conscious awareness, we are also being asked to think and act with the consciousness of love.

The strange thing is, although this loving response to everyone and everything is a natural part of our nature, we have come so distant from this knowing, that it seems to take a huge amount of work to be in this innate state of acting and thinking in love.

“We ask you this: When you know what you know, must you act on it? And we will tell you, yes. When you have new knowledge—and new knowledge, we say, is new information that you have gone into agreement with in your knowing—it becomes part of your frequency and the reckoning with it is nearly instantaneous. To reckon with something is to face it, to see it for what it is, and then to move with it as you choose.”

This again is not a judgment, simply an awareness. You always have a choice of a higher vibration or a lower one. This is one of the many reasons why awareness is so important. Since we can only make these choices in our awareness.

No matter which I choose higher or lower, there are consequences connected to that choice. So if I metaphorically choose a lower vibration I am digging a hole that I put myself in and therefore if I want to, I must choose to dig myself out. That is simply a cosmic law like a physical law of gravity it is neither good or bad.

What is interesting to me lately is that it has become or is becoming easier for me to make positive healthy choices in my life. In other words, to choose a higher vibration rather than the lower one. The choice is still there; it just simply seems more natural to flow into that positive state of higher vibration.

The reason why I find that so fascinating, and certainly an object of my gratitude, is that I have often perceived to myself as someone who identifies with the negative more than the positive. Of course, when I perceived myself in that lower vibration state of mind, I was only vaguely aware that I had a choice. Today than choice is much more obvious to me. As we have mentioned many times before, this is more a choice about the thoughts and actions that I am involved with, it is not always a choice about how I feel. Eventually feelings will align themselves with my choices of thoughts and actions, but not necessarily right away.

Thank you all; thank you all; thank you all. Amen