Leo Tolstoy on God

LEO TOLSTOY ON GOD: "When you look inside yourself, you see what is called 'your own self' or your soul. You cannot touch it or see it or understand it, but you know it is there. And this part of yourself--that which you cannot understand--is what is called God. God is both around us and inside of us--in our souls.

The more you understand that you are at one with God, the more you will understand that you are at one with all His worldly manifestations."

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Man: "King of Inner Thoughts and Outer Circumstances"



You are Free! 


Photos Credit: Loni Love
The nation was ablaze on the night of June 26, 2015 with lights the colors of the rainbow being displayed in prominent places. (As noted in the photos above, rainbow-colored lights were displayed at: Niagara Falls, Disney World, The White House, One World Trade Center.) There was dancing in the streets, and shouts of joy permeated news broadcasts throughout the nation as people celebrated the majority justices of The Supreme Court of United States (SCOTUS) handing down a decision to make marriage apply to all men and women in the nation, regardless of sexual orientation.


Lilian and Mike changed
their Facebook photo 
Althea Alexis changed her Facebook photo
Throughout the weekend, millions of people took to social media to express their joy. As of June 30, more than 26 million people had the rainbow covering their Facebook profile photos.(26 Million People Express Rainbow Pride on Facebook) These are the folks whose consciousness changed the world! (Heterosexual couples and singles (pictured) joined in the celebration with their gay friends to support passage of the national "Marriage" law.)

Ten years ago, whether the law was on their side or not, those same SCOTUS justices could not have dared to pass such a law that now applies to all 50 states in the United States. The reason was simple: the nation was not yet ready for such a law.



David Gerson's Photo: members of the SCOTUS 
The majority of Americans simply were not ready to accept that a marriage license should be granted to men and women of the same sex. But here's how fast Americans changed their minds, accepted gay relationships and "gay marriage" was considered "marriage" and the law of the land. (Pace of Social Change)
See this link: (Same Sex Marriage: From 0 to 100 percent)

So, how did the United States get to the June 26 decision?

The changing of the consciousness of the people in the United States: mass consciousness. And this is just not me talking.


Scores of years ago, scientists talked about the 100th Monkey Effect, where there was significant behavioral changes among a colony of macaque monkeys in 1952 on the Japanese Island of Koshima. When a certain way of washing sweet potatoes reached a critical mass of 100 monkeys, the behavior was passed down to the new generation of monkeys and became practice. More recently, Epoch Times published a piece on the effect of group consciousness on conditions in the world. (Evidence of Group Consciousness Having an Effect on the World.)

With enough people changing their minds about what they thought marriage ought to be, SCOTUS could not then overlook the truth of the law: a marriage license could not be denied men and women based on their choice of partners.

We see how mass consciousness (thinking) has worked over generations to change many unfair rules and situations. Yet, somehow when we get to our own individual lives, we may not see how the same thinking can affect the circumstances of our lives.


But know this: We are not helpless creatures doomed to a certain fate! We are creators of our circumstances and can change the direction of our lives. If you don't like the direction in which your life is moving: change the screen.


In his most recent book, The 13th Disciple, Master Teacher Deepak Chopra uses the analogy of your life being the movie you see on the screen, with you as the director, projecting the image that you see.
Deepak Chopra on CNBC discussing his novel.
"It's (still) a huge leap to believe that the entire world is a projection, and an even bigger leap to realize that you are watching the movie and projecting it at the same time. Magicians don't believe in their illusions, after all."  - Deepak Chopra, The 13th Disciple 
"Things" do not happen to you. They happen for you, based on the level of your thinking and expectations.

You are the master of your thoughts, and in the same way, you are a master of your circumstances, based on the power of those thoughts.


Yes. It is that simple.


No mumbo jumbo.



Credit: Mentors' Channel
Credit: Mentors' Channel
I do believe that our lives are "fated" to lead us in a certain way. But we are meant to be co-creators with that fate. The way it is 'fated' is based on the circumstances in which we were born.
However, we get to choose where we place our thoughts: Are we going to resign our lives to poverty, because we were born to poor parents? No.

This is when we begin to see the "magician" within us at work, visualizing and creating new lives for ourselves, based on the level of our thinking. We think poor, and: yes, undoubtedly, we will project onto our life's screen a poor and even helpless way of living.

Change those thoughts, and you begin to see a new movie appearing...you get to increasingly see the pictures change and more and more of what you want begins to show up on your life's screen.

If you doubt that your thoughts are connected to your actions, thus ultimately your success, read this piece:
"Science Unlocked The Key To Reading People's Minds."

We can create our heaven or our hell, as we grow through and go through certain circumstances in our lives.

As we previously discussed, we will be focusing on "Mind is the Master: The Complete James Allen Treasury" in each of the upcoming months. We will discuss one of the 19 volumes in Allen's book and share his insights on how our thinking affects our lives.

Beginning with the first volume, "The Path of Prosperity: From Poverty to Power,"Chapter 2: "The World a Reflex of Mental States," Allen says:

"It matters little what is without, for it is all a reflection of your own state of consciousness. It matters everything, what you are within, for everything without will be mirrored and colored accordingly.
"All that you positively know is contained in your own experience; all that you ever will know must pass through the gateway of experience, and so become part of yourself.
"Your own thoughts, desires, and aspirations comprise your world, and, to you, all that there is in the universe of beauty and joy and bliss, or of ugliness and sorrow and pain, is contained within yourself. By your own thoughts you make or mar your life, your world, your universe. As you build within by the power of thought, so will your outward life and circumstances shape themselves accordingly. Whatsoever you harbor in the inmost chambers of your heart will, sooner or later by the inevitable law of reaction, shape inself in your outward life. The soul that is impure, sordid, and selfish is gravitating with unerring precision toward misfortune and catastrophe; the soul that is pure, unselfish and noble is gravitating with equal precision toward happiness and prosperity. Every soul attracts its own, and nothing can possibly come to it that does not belong to it. To realize this is to recognize the universality of Divine Law. The incidents of every human life, which both make and mar, are drawn to it by the quality and power of its own inner thought-life. Every soul is a complex combination of gathered experiences and thoughts, and the body is but an improvised vehicle for its manifestation. What, therefore, your thoughts are, that is your real self; the world around, both animate and inanimate, wears the aspects with which your thoughts clothe it. 'All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts.'" 
What we must realize, Allen says, is that although outer circumstances do affect our minds,  we still are in control of how we allow those outward circumstances to affect us. 

The way to prevent ourselves from being influenced by outside circumstances that would want to corrupt our thinking is to understand that we are in control of what we think about what we see. By not allowing ourselves to be influenced by the good or bad we see in the outward things, we remain in control of our thoughts and become master over them.

"One cannot alter external things to suit for passing whims and wishes, but he can set aside his whims and wishes; he can so alter his attitude of mind toward externals that they will assume a different aspect." James Allen

Here are some ways to be "King of Your Inner Thoughts and Outer Circumstances":
* Free yourself from the habit of bad thoughts: "Habit is repetition," Allen writes. Repeating the same thoughts cause us to repeat the same actions, and these in turn give us the same experiences over and over again.  But we should remember that we are not "ready-made." We're always in a state of "becoming." By remembering that our main goal in life is to become more...pure in thought, compassion, and an expression of love...we can change our circumstances and experiences by first changing our thinking about a thing.
Don't fight life! Don't fight the negatives that show up. Instead, figure out what they are there to teach you.

  *Free yourself from thoughts about the bodily conditions to be changed: "Men of robust minds do not dwell upon their bodily condition if it be in any way disordered--they ignore it, and work on, live on, as though it were not. This ignoring of the body not only keeps the mind sane and strong, but it is the best resource for curing the body. If we cannot have a perfectly sound body, we can have a healthy mind, and a healthy mind is the best route to a sound body."
Credit: Mentors' Channel

*Free yourself from poverty thoughts: Those who are dissatisfied with their poverty will always seek to rise above it, Allen writes. But those who view their financial state and poor conditions as "their lot" in life will never seek to rise above it, as they remain contented with the conditions. Then there are others who may still be discontented in what they view as "poverty," though they may have millions of dollars. But these individuals are more consumed with covetousness, rather than about living in squalor. Poverty thoughts limit us to either being discontented in our riches, or dissatisfied enough to want to rise above it. We get to choose which one we become a slave to in our thinking!


Through Devotion to Duty and Self-Conquest by the power of thought, we can be free of every undesirable condition in our lives, including our ability to go  from poverty to affluence, influence and lasting joy, Allen writes. 


Each day in the news, we read of someone overcoming certain limitations or achieving great results in life when the odds were against them. These results don't "just happen." First, they believed they could achieve it, then they went about getting the movie screen of their lives set right with their thinking. See this recent story (Misty Copeland promoted to principal ballerina at American Ballet Theater) about Misty Copeland and the YouTube video below.  


Poem: "The Path To Prosperity: From Poverty to Power." 

"If thou would'st right the world
And banish all its evil and its woes
make its wild places bloom, 
And its drear deserts blossom as a rose---
Then right thyself.

If thou would'st turn the world

From its long, lone captivity in sin.
Restore all broken hearts, 
Slay grief and let sweet consolations in---
Turn thou thyself.

if thou would'st cure the world

Of its long sickness, end its grief and pain;
Bring in all-healing Joy,
And give the afflicted rest again---
Then cure thyself.

If thou would'st wake the world

out of its dream of death and dark'ning strife,
Bring it to love and Peace,
And Light and brightness of immortal Life---
Wake thou thyself."

Namaste',
Che'

Personal Authenticity: "To Thine Own Self Be True"...

"To Thine Own Self Be True and it must follow as the night, the day, Thou canst not then be false to ANY man."
William Shakespeare.