God Does Not Answer Your Prayers: YOU Do! (Wake Up: Part III)

GOD is THE Wind Beneath Your Wings! 

Photo Credit: Rosa Alquimica

We go about our lives for the larger part of our lives...mostly in a fog. 


We know we walk, but 
we don't fully know the mechanics that 

 


got us from being babies, held in our parents arms, to crawling...to walking upright....to being full adults.

But we keep on walking...without stopping to pause and discover how we do what we do. [Many wake up only when somethng drastic happens in their lives.]

It's time to wake up, KIDS!

If you have no spiritual leanings, and especially if you're not religious, you may not want to hear this, but it's TRUTH: 

The mystery that is GOD is the wind beneath our wings, if not, our very wings.

We can "fly" because of God.

We can "speak" because of God.

We do what we do because of God.

God is the beginning and the end of all that we do.

God is the energy that vibrates and operates throughout our Being!

Do we think we walk... because our parents showed us how to do so?

Do we think we speak... because we mimicked what we heard?

Stop and think.


The mechanics of all that we do lie within us: It is the spirit of God! 

God's spirit is so active throughout our being... and as us... that we do not realize its Presence. So intertwined is the Spirit (Energy) of God within us that we cannot differentiate our human actions from this very spirit that does all on our behalf. So, like we do with all things we obtain without asking, we take the Spirit of God within us for granted. But... it is there and it is the essential part of ourselves. God's spirit is the energy...the Essence... that is us.

"God is the name we give to that unchangeable, inexorable principle at the source of all existence." - H. Emilie Cady

God's energy permeates the entire Universe, making things happen.

We must accept this!

Once we accept this, then we're able to see that when we PRAY, we're essentially praying to that greater part within ourselves.

But...here's the key: in order for our prayer to be answered, we must first find the activation button in our center!

That button is called: FAITH!

This button is the trigger that moves all mountains out of our way.

The first step in any deliverance of our prayers is to:

Have Faith!

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...." - Hebrews 11:1

The second step in having prayers answered is:

Change our consciousness about our power and abilities!

"Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live." -Neville Goddard, "Your Faith is Your Fortune." 

The third step in realizing our prayers is to ACT!

"We talk to God---that is prayer; God talks to us---that is inspiration."- H. Emilie Cady, "Lessons in Truth"

"In the Flow of Life," Eric Butterworth writes about the impact of some religions teaching about God outside ourselves.

"Subtly, but certainly, we are trained to think of life as a 'getting' experience. Like Buddhist monks, we are given the psychological counterpart of the little begging bowl by which to go into the world to seek the 'gifts of God' from our parents, our schools, our religion, our work.

"No matter what hunger or desire, we invariably go begging 'out there' for fulfillment. Paul seemed to know better. In 2 Timothy 1: 6, he writes, 'I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you.'"

If we're discerning, we should eventually get to a place within ourselves that we realize this:

Life happens only as we bring it forth. In essence, we learn that God is Life, and he is in the activity of our very life.

This requires us to go forth to do and be and act "our natural selves," so we can experience the presence of God in our lives. It is critical that we have confidence in ourselves.

"We come into the world as living souls of infinite potentiality to be discovered and released, for life is lived from within-out." Eric Butterworth.

Relying on prayers to activate the presence of God within us is a sure way to get back into the flow. When we pray believing in consciousness that all prayers will be answered, we rest. This brings forth the power (spirit) of God within us.

"We have no power to demonstrate health or supply for anyone, but we can demonstrate the presence of God. We can get very still within and, with patience, come to a state of consciousness where we feel the very living presence of God, where we feel the stir and the activity of God within, where we feel such a complete release from human fears that we know God is on the field."  Wrote Joel S. Goldsmith in "Living The Infinite Way."

There's no source or force from outside of us that comes to our aid; the power (and the answer) comes through us.

Imagine then, when our spirit gets so low and we stop believing in ourselves...stop activating the power (spirit of God) within us.

That's when our lives become dormant and stagnant.

Faith in a God outside of ourselves leads us to complacency and failure. We have all heard the saying, "God can only do for us, what he can do through us." It is critically important for us to understand this and to know that confidence in our God-imbibed selves is what makes our lives work!

The only presence and power in our lives is God. If we stop believing in ourselves, thus stop connecting to the source and force within us, death surrounds us in every way in all ways.

We must remain active in life to have all of life become active through us as us.

Resting comfortably in God only becomes a reward when we have the consciousness to assume the habitat for which we've prayed: We must pray from the consciousness of having already received the desired thing. Without dwelling in the habitat of that which we seek, prayers and faith are for naught.

"The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the ship that carries you over the unknown seas to the fulfillment of your dream. The assumption is everything; realization is subconscious and effortless." Neville Goddard writes in "The Power of Awareness."

He urges, "Assume a virtue if you have it not…

"Act on the assumption that you already possess that which you sought."

Like the other forces in nature, relying solely on what's within them to grow and thrive: there honestly is no power outside of us that will rally to our aid to help us through life's crises. This is truly when "failure" occurs: waiting with faith in God outside of ourselves to deliver us.

Jacques Lusseyran, born in Paris in 1924, was blinded at age seven, yet at age 16 led an underground resistance of 600 youths during the German Occupation.  In his book, "And There Was Light," Lusseyran wrote about being blind and seeing "the light." This passage, about when he and others were finally caught by the Germans, is especially poignant:

  

"All of us were naked, if not literally, to all effects. We had no rank, no dignity, no fortune left…and no face to save. Every man was cut down to himself to what he really was. And, believe me, that created a real proletariat…"The camp was the witches' well. They had thrown them all in there together, the Benedictine monk, the Kirghiz shepherd who prayed to Allah three times a day with his face to the ground, the professor from the Sorbonne, the mayor of Warsaw…the good and the evil. The only thing was…and you had to get used to it…all these categories were dead and gone, for we had passed over into a different world…."The religious searched everywhere for their faith. They did not find it again, or else they found it so reduced in force they could not make use of it. It is a terrifying thing to have called yourself a Christian for 40 years and then to discover that you're not a real one, that your God no longer served them."The people who had generally been respected ran after their lost respect, but there wasn't anything left of it. The intellectuals, the cultivated men, the great brains, had great sorrows.  They didn't know what to do with their great learning for it didn't protect them against misfortune. They were submerged in that great broth of humanity."How many doctors and sociologists, archaeologists and barristers needed comforting. And it wasn't easy to console them. They could not understand anything more readily than the fact that their intelligence was out of season."Our rich at Buchenwald were the devil and all to find in the crowd, for they had no label. They were neither religious men nor atheists, neither liberals nor communists, neither well nor badly brought up. There were just there, that was all, mixed up with the rest. My one idea was to find them."Their wealth was not made of courage, for courage is always suspect or a consequence of something else. The rich were the ones who did not think of themselves, or only rarely, for a minute or two in an emergency. They were the ones who had given up the ridiculous notion that the concentration camp was the end of everything, a piece of hell, an unjust punishment, a wrong done them which they had not deserved.They were the ones who were hungry and cold and frightened like the rest, who didn't hesitate to say so on occasion---why conceal the real state of things?--but who in the end didn't care. The rich were the ones who were not really there."Sometimes they had removed themselves entirely by going crazy."

We don't have to go crazy to get to a state of bliss.
Neither do we have to escape through the use of alcohol or drugs.

We can get to a place of rest and peace and joy and happiness.

We do so by living moment by moment and through the conscious realization of connection to the ONE presence and power in our lives that resides within us.

This affirmation from Silent Unity is a powerful one for all situations:

  "God is my Strength.

                                       
                                                God is my Supply.

God is my Source.

God is my Substance."

In this season of the Christ, I invite you to WAKE UP to peace and wholeness by discovering the truth about YOU!

"He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world."
"It is not I, but the father within me who doeth the work."
"Peace, Be Still."

Merry Xmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays. May this Season of celebration be with you, knowing that within you lies the answer to all that you seek to do, be and achieve.

Namaste',

Che'

When Darkness Comes: Hunker In...It's a Wild Ride! (Wake Up: Part II)

"Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that growth does not take place in the sunlight." Joan Chittister, Uncommon Gratitude

The above image and quote, notwithstanding, sometimes, even to ourselves, life simply does not make sense... sometimes.

We're not talking here of little day-to-day trials, or even short periods of darkness. We're talking of when the curtain comes down on an entire period of your life for months, even years, where you have to keep on walking but you have no clue where you're headed and why.What "you know for sure," though,  is that you have to keep on moving, whether it's seemingly on the treadmill of life, or you're actually making strides in some direction "of which you know not of." You sense there might be a protective presence right there with you, but again, you are no longer sure.

This is the journey  of the "Dark Night of the Soul," covered by St. John of the Cross in his book of the same name. The translation we will use to understand the depth of this journey and its stillness is by E. Allison Peers.  

Spiritual literature abounds with the promises of enrichment that follows the person on a spiritual path.

Promises of simply "thinking and growing rich"  are everywhere in self empowerment books, while others may say you simply have to look within and the road will open up to greet you.

Perhaps these positive things happen right at the beginning of the spiritual journey, when people first discover there's an entire part to themselves that they've been missing. They then begin to go within by starting meditation classes, reflecting in quiet moments and doing things they previously had not done before. By staying positive, even when things go awry, they do see good changes happening in their lives.

These are the good times.

Stop there. 

Truly stop there and go no further, especially if there's no compulsion in your Soul to know more. You'll continue to fully enjoy your life, if you just stop there! Any dark nights you encounter should just be a natural part of life.   

Image of diver, doing free diving, where divers test their limits 
with death-defying free dives. See 60 minutes episode:"Free Diving"

(THE PREVIOUS WARNING [from October] IS WORTH REPEATING
Please always keep in mind
this caveat as you walk the spiritual path: We should
not give up our lives to go "looking"
for God. Rather, live our lives with the consciousness
of Spirit within! There's real danger in going "looking." Live your life by doing what's right moment by moment; connecting within should be the only "looking" you do. If you find yourself wanting to give up careers, jobs, husbands, wives and/or children, you've traveled into dangerous territory.)

For those who truly feel called to go much deeper to connect to the within and those wanting to understand more about the mystery of life, there's a strong likelihood that you'll encounter "dark nights." But few spiritual leaders dwell upon the darkness that often results from following a deeply authentic spiritual path.   [A"dark night" experience is more than a bad day/night. Nevertheless, this Deepak Chopra story makes interesting reading:  ("My First Job: My Dark Night As a Real Doctor")] 

Check out whole libraries, and the literature is scarce on the dark side of spiritual enlightenment. It's as if the teachers are reluctant to share that part of the journey, or, they simply have not reached that point in their own evolution. Indeed, they may have stopped journeying inward, as they encountered light, and more light, on their path. Positive thinking does work! Many DO Think and Grow Rich!

There may be a reason that even those willing to talk about the darkness stay silent for long periods after having gone through the dark night. Most need to process the experience for a long time afterwards; many are reluctant to share such a period they know is "grace." 

The "dark night of the soul" has unspeakable horrors, as well as unspeakable joys.This is the time in our lives when all the spiritual muscle we've developed before atrophies and becomes useless. Nothing works!

Church doesn't work, prayer doesn't seem to work, the bible offers some comfort but not enough, affirmations and all that we may have once believed as "Truth" no longer work. Indeed, even the very selves we knew begin to disappear. The road becomes so dark we doubt we'll make it through to the other side.

To imagine this dark road, try to see your hand when all the electricity in your home has been turned out and you have no candles to light your way. Imagine trying to go outside and it's darker still, as the street lights are not working and there's no moonlight.
Imagine the darkness of such horror.
Imagine, too, that somewhere in the stillness of the darkness, you hear a faint, very faint voice, calling you to move in its direction. As you keep traveling towards it, it seems to grow clearer and clearer...But you know, you've still got a far way to go.

St. John of the Cross, a great Spanish and Carmelite monk in the 16th century, spoke of the dark night in as clear a fashion as anyone can share.

For St. John, this is a period of God's abiding love for us, yet, it is the most painful, as it a purifying period. Pride, avarice, envy and other human imperfections are held up to the light, so we can expel these negative traits from our Soul.

For those who are faint of heart, this is not a journey to be undertaken without much forethought.
Even for those who undertake it, unknowingly, and wish to turn back at many times, there is no way back.

The beauty of the "dark night of the soul" is that as it expunges the impurities, there comes more light, more wisdom, more joy, more beauty of the Soul and a deepening love for God.

This is the same light that Jacques Lusseyran in his book, "And There was Light,"* explains as a different vision that comes to the blind child or person.

"All of us, whether we are blind or not, are terribly greedy. We want things only for ourselves. Even without realizing it, we want the universe to be like us and give us all the room in it.
But a blind child learns very quickly that this cannot be. He has to learn it, for every time he forgets that he is not alone in the world, he strikes against an object, hurts himself and is called to order. But each time he remembers, he is rewarded for everything comes his way."

There are unspeakable horrors, as one's missteps are held up into the light. Who really wants to see the ugliness of their behavior played out on a movie screen that is their mind and heart?

Yet, there's the unspeakable, unparalleled joy of wisdom and insight and the glory of being held, however briefly, by God.

No one can speak of this journey of darkness to illumination.
Few do.

If you're privileged to get that far in your journey, you'll understand why, too.

And you'll know that all you can do is to hunker in...through the darkness...as the glory will come...the light will come...eventually. 

While you're at it, I strongly recommend as your companion, "Dark Night of the Soul," by St. John of the Cross. You will learn from him to give thanks through it all, and you will be grateful for the journey.

 "A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experience and therefore knowledge, that we could not possibly achieve in any other way." -Deena Metzger, Healer

Happy Thanksgiving!

Namaste',
Che'
NOTES:
*We will cover this book in more depth in December.
**Via Gratefulness.org, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. Deena Metzger is a writer, poet, essayist, playwright, novelist, counselor and healer. According to Wikipedia, she has been teaching for more than 45 years and has developed therapies called, "Healing Stories."

Looking for God in All the Wrong Places: Wake UP! Part I

We must begin to see: God is in all as all! Photo Credit: Relaxxx Music

"We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use." tao de ching

Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake UP!

The world is waiting for you.
The world is waiting for you to begin to really create yourself in its space and leave an imprint.

We're all bakers, makers, candlestick makers.
We're all writers, poets, doctors and lawyers.
We're all preachers, teachers, leaders.

Whoever created this bench was highly creative! Photo Credit: Pictures World 

Just wake up and find your way.

The potential to be and do and achieve and become anything is there. We just have to unleash the creative powers within.

We can be all that we want to be and more, if only we can wake up to all the creative resources waiting patiently within us to be used. The problem is that the world puts limits on us and this brakes us into molds and folds where we believe that we can only do and achieve at certain levels. Truthfully, those limits can be removed, and we can work with the "open sky" to create a new way of being, seeing and doing in the world.

Before we can do any of that, though, we must wake up to the truth of WHO we are.

Look at the young woman pictured at the top. Do you think she can help but do what she does? Do you think that she came to this talent by accident, or was she wired this way? Of course, the young woman honed her skills and talent over the years to go to higher and higher levels from where she began. But from inception, she was "born that way."

Look at these images of dancers in New York City, defying gravity. (Dancers in Times Square Defy Gravity). They've honed their natural talents and abilities to the level of mastery.

That's the physical part of ourselves. Less obvious is the spirit within all these "acrobatic" moves that allowed them to do what they do.

*Steve Jobs was able to tap into the power within himself and reached out to the power within others to create products that now serve us daily in magnificent ways throughout the world. 

Whether we're famous or not, we're always contributing to the greater whole by producing goods and services that evolve from our natural talents and abilities.

We may be a stay-at-home mom, baking, cooking and sewing; an office manager, a lawyer, a scientist, mathematician, teacher, doctor, but what we all are naturally doing is tapping into the source within. From there, everything flows.

When we're not "in the flow" with our talents, skills and abilities, our lives become very uncomfortable and can even become our nightmare.

"In the Flow of Life," Master Teacher Eric Butterworth shows us how our lives get off track and how we can get back into the flow. I highly recommend this great book on the flow, but it's to his other book I now want to steer your attention. 

In "Discover the Power Within You," Butterworth emphasizes that Jesus' teachings were to educate us on the power within us all, not just in him, Jesus.  Butterworth went to great lengths explaining how Jesus' works and words were really invitations for us to look within ourselves.

"In his search for the 'holy grail,' man has looked everywhere and in vain, but he has failed to look within himself." -Eric Butterworth

He explained that when other prophets, too, have tried to teach us the way, we have turned to worship them, ignoring their teachings, and essentially making"a god of the prophet...worshiped him and built monuments to him.." 

With the advent of religions, we trapped ourselves in "the religion practices that had no 'within.'"

How do we extricate ourselves and seek the truth within us?

We must first wake up to the role of religion in our lives:

"The institution of church is always dictatorial, no matter what outer form it takes. It does not convince you but gives you directions on how to behave." - Immanuel Kant 

The late Eric Butterworth

Once we're able to understand that our religion may get us to navigate our way successfully in the world but may not get us to truly explore the power within us, then we will begin to wake up to Truth. This is what Jesus tried to teach and what Butterworth covers in his book.  

We must Wake UP! You can't keep looking to the preacher, the teacher, the spiritual leader to guide you. Begin to look for yourself...by digging into yourself! 

(WARNING--Please always keep in mind
this caveat as you walk the spiritual path: We should
not give up our lives to go "looking"
for God. Rather, live our lives with a consciousness
of Spirit within! There's real danger in going "looking."

Live your life by doing what's right moment by moment;
connecting within should be the only "looking" you do. If you find yourself

wanting to give up careers, jobs, husbands, wives and/or children, you've

traveled into dangerous territory. We'll explore that next month.)

What we must learn

1. We must change our Consciousness in order to Change our lives.

The world will continuously try to seduce us into believing that it, and all its trappings, is what life really is all about. We must resist the temptation to conform only to the ways of the world and reach for a higher level of being, as Paul noted, "Be not conformed to this world, but ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12: 2 

"...the greatest mistake is in believing that we are 'only human.'" Butterworth says. We must try to go deeper within and touch the core of our being by not giving in only to worldly standards.

Photo Credit: "Stunning photos"

In other words, set higher standards of behavior for ourselves. In doing so, and in constantly searching to the core of our being, we will reach that higher level. We will begin to operate from the level of our Soul, which always seeks to guide our steps. 

When we begin to go inward, seeking to connect in every moment, in every way, we set into motion this "Soul operation."

2. We Must Accept Our Unity with God, as Jesus did!

"We must begin to see Jesus as the great discoverer of the innate Divinity of Man, the supreme revealer of the truth about man, the pioneer and the way shower in the quest for self realization and self unfoldment."- Eric Butterworth 

This is the part of us that makes many of us want to go "Aww Shucks! No way!" 
But it is the truth...the only truth...that will set us all free!

Emilie Cady, another master spiritual teacher who authored many great books, recommends that the way to truly do this, i.e.discover the divinity within, is "to make a conscious decision to let God really take over in every area of our lives." Cady has written powerful books like "Lessons In Truth."

Why is this so difficult? Why don't we simply allow this?

Our egos. Our very humanity gets in the way.
Our first instinct when challenges arise is not to go within but to go seeking without, i.e. friends, advisers and anyone who would listen to our plight. Then, we begin to plan and plot how we're going to "fix" the problem. It's only when we've exhausted ourselves in trying that we finally "Let Go, and Let God."

Often, it is within that short hour that the answer comes through us.

3. We Must Realize that God is The Spirit, The Energy that Surrounds Us and Dwells Within Us!  He is the energy that is in all living things ...creates all things and even permeates all things...

There's a story Butterworth tells in his book of a child being reminded that she should not be afraid for God is always with her. "But I want someone with skin on," the child cries.

Isn't that like us?

"Where ever we are, GOD IS!" But do we believe this? 

No!

According to Butterworth,  Meister Eckhart, the great philosopher, said that God expects only one thing of you, "and that is that you stop thinking of yourself as a created being and let God be God in you."

"The true self of you, the Christ, spiritual man," Butterworth urges, "is the individuation of God. You are the Presence of God at the point where you are."

Each of us are members of the ONE body of God, the ONE Spirit, the ONE Energy holding up the universe through all and in all.

"God is dead to you, if you are asleep to the activity of the Presence in you." Butterworth says.  

So, how is it that if God is dead to our conscious minds that we are still able to reap the benefits of the God connection?

By Grace.

With that, I conclude the first part of Wake UP!

As you contemplate what has been written so far, I invite you to think about the tremendous feats accomplished by the "Steve Jobs" of the world, the contortionist above, and the many other famous people you may know. Doing so, I hope you begin to see a common theme:

Whether the persons "deserve" the gifts given to them or not, based on the public profiles we see of them, they still were able to exercise and claim those gifts.

All by Grace. All by the Spirit Within.

"...Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of Me does the world go forward.I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded...."James Dillet Freeman

 (Click here for the entire poem :"I am There" by James Dillet Freeman)

Wake UP to Truth! Wake Up to the Spirit Within!

Namaste',

Che'




*NOTE: As October 5 comes around and I celebrate a birthday, I also think of Steve Jobs who died on that day in 2011.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The three-part "Wake UP" series is being based on three books in consecutive order:"Discover The Power Within You," by Eric Butterworth; "Dark Night of the Soul," by St. John of the Cross, and "Exquisite Risk" by Mark Nepo