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."

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Fly High! Know You're Never Alone


Photo Credit: Sociedad Argentina de Horticultura
"...our God is a God of second chances, fresh starts, and new beginnings. I love Mondays, because each Monday is a new beginning--a fresh start! God gives us Mondays, and New Year's day and birthdays, and every single one represents a new blessing and a new beginning."
-Excerpt from"Rediscover Jesus: An Invitation," a 40-day devotional, from Advent to Lent,  being distributed in Catholic churches throughout the United States. "Rediscover Jesus," was written by New York Times Best-Selling Author Matthew Kelly.

The New Year brings such feelings of Joy, Hope and Renewal.

We plan new activities and try to activate those plans we'd not quite completed, or even started, the year before.

All around us, the air is tinged with hope and promises of a new dawn... a new day. Strangers and friends alike are crisp, brimming with the brightness and freshness of new beginnings.

I'm joining wholeheartedly in these celebrations. I'm enjoying this heightened state of awareness, as we become conscious to the fact that the next 360-plus days are in our hands to mold, and fold, as we see fit. We get to create completely new beginnings!

How is it that we begin each year from such a height, then often end it with such a thud? At the end of the old year, many of us are anxious to leave it behind, grateful for an opportunity to start anew...
As we grow forward on the calendar of years, this becomes a normal state, year after year...
And exactly, what does our Soul say to this phenomenon? 
If I were to make a guess, I'd say our Soul is celebrating, too, and anxious for us "to come up higher" in years... if this means that we would then come up higher in our view of things.
Were I to make a wild guess, I believe our Soul longs for us to age...to get wiser.and to understand all of its secrets.
Credit: Sociedad Argentina de Horitcultura

Our Soul is patient. It knows that wisdom takes times. So it, too, gets into a Spirit of celebration with us with each new passing year, as we grow in consciousness and can claim more experiences and the concomitant wisdom for ourselves.

You see, our Soul knows that it takes a certain amount of living...a certain amount of years...for most of us to begin to pay attention to things beyond what our eyes can see and our ears can hear. (Listen and be inspired by this 92 year old woman."Rosey Inspires Us About Aging..."

Our Soul knows that even though all along, we're sensing "something" behind the curtain of life, we've never dared peek. So busy are we trying to conform and live up to the expectations of family, friends, neighbors, community and the world.  So busy are we trying to figure out the next right move to make to reach that million-dollar savings goal, or saving for the next fabulous car or house to buy, or the next great job that would seal our future and our fate.
Credit: Sociedad Argentina de Horitcultura

Our Soul knows the process of our evolution, and it's patient.

It waits.
It knows that as time begins to move seemingly more rapidly for us, we begin to slow down and pay more attention. After we've reached and shrived and reached and shrived, we begin to feel like an empty rocking chair: lots of swinging but no real movement forward. So then we begin to crave wanting to know and uncover "the promise," and the real secret to life.
Credit: Sociedad Argentina de Horitcultura

For some, the joy we feel at the start of the year comes from anticipation that somehow...in some way...this year...this very year...we'll unlock the elixir to life and have all of its sweetness flow to us.
Like the birds in the air...like the leaves on a tree... we long to be free...
We want to know the secret behind our being in a place and in space that we know is not our permanent home...We long to know: Why am I here? WHY am I here?
The urgency of finding an answer becomes more intense as we age. 
Credit: Mentors' Channel
So, then, how can we capture the Joy, Excitement, and Promise of a new year and package it into a bottle to make it last all of this year.. and the next... and the next?
                      "Really, my dears, it's so elementary..."
  • Stay with your consciousness. 
  • Stay with the flow of life that comes at you in each moment. 
  • Don't go beyond that moment.
  • Put worry aside and stick only with the moment. Give it the best of all that you have and take from it all that it offers. 
  • BE GRATEFUL THROUGH IT ALL. 
  • Do the next right thing...consciously.
  • Always choose to do in the moment what will best serve both you and others.
  • Do not be self-focused; be "us" focused, even when with strangers. (In a challenging situation, ask: What is best for us all in this moment?") 
  • Become consciously aware of your thoughts and your actions.
  • Credit: Law of Attraction
  • Then reach for the next
    BEST moment...and......the next and the next and the next.
And as you do so, a new life will begin to unfold for you.

I'm not suggesting that you tear up your bright and exciting plans.

What I am suggesting, though, is that you hold those plans out from you...like a vision.
Begin to see yourself IN the plans, living and doing and being, in the "plans," the way
you expect and want to be.

So, instead of the plans being "inactive," make them an active part of your life. Every time you think of the plans, see yourself actually living them.
Credit: Mentors' Channel

And....do not try to figure out how you're going to get from there to there to here. Just follow the steps you're guided to take.

Moving through moment by moment, giving to each the best that you've got, and holding out your plans as a vision: you will be free.
Credit: Mentors' Channel
  You will be free!
Along the way of living in the moments, I hope, trust and pray that you stop in and check inside...
that you begin to allow yourself peeks behind the curtain of personality...into your Soul.
Credit: Mentors' Channel

As you reach in, through meditation and/or prayer, you will find it reaches out and pulls you in more and more.

It's there with you each moment ...each and every moment...in every way in every day.

Get to know it. Give a silent "Thank You" as often as you can!

As you try to fly and be free, do so in the comfort of knowing that you are NOT alone.

Credit: Sociedad Argentina de Horticultura



You are never alone.



[ABOUT THE TREES: Tule is of Mexican origin. It takes 25-30 people to cover the diameter of the trunk. The average weight of these is about 600 tons.]

Credit: Sociedad Argentina de Horticultura

Uncover this secret in 2016, and you've got wisdom of the trees and the elixir for life.


Have an awesome 2016!

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.