Look Around in Awareness

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You are a living magnet, constantly drawing to you the things, people, and circumstances that are in accord with your thoughts.   Dennis Kimbro

You are what you think about most of the time.  Dennis Kimbro

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.  James Thurber

What is going on inside you now is predictive of your future.  So it is wise to notice your thoughts and change them if necessary.  The Dalai Lama

There is only one true religion, and that is the religion of the heart.  God never named it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.  Man gave the titles, and that is what separates and divides us.  My dream is to one day see a world that comes together to fight for one cause – the human cause.  Muhammad Ali

It is not that Spirit produces or heals or corrects matter or the physical universe, but that we rise higher in consciousness to where there is less matter and, therefore, less discord, inharmony, disease, or lack.   Joel Goldsmith

Whatever we choose to focus on is what we will see manifested in our lives.  Joel Osteen

We Are All Responsible

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One morning during meditation, I was feeling bad about all of the pain in the world and asked “Why?”  What did Native Americans do to deserve such annihilation?  What did Africans do to become slaves and colonized?  What was the cause of such pain and degradation of peace-loving, Spirit-loving people?

Of course, there are numerous hypotheses, the main one possibly being that the cause is human nature.  From the very beginning, humans have killed one another for power, control, possessions, retribution, punishment, emotions, and survival.  Nevertheless, as we presumably evolve away from our animalistic characteristics, can we become consciously aware of ways in which we contribute to nurturing the very base level of our existence?

It came to me that we create devastation in our world and contribute to it every day by our thoughts and behavior.  Unchecked anger, hatred, bigotry, jealousy, resentment, worry, anxiety and other unproductive energies contribute to a force that feeds from and integrates with beings and systems with like vibrations.

In an episode of the Star Trek television series, the crew attempted to get rid of Jack the Ripper, who was thought to have died centuries earlier.  They discovered that “he” was actually a universal force that received its energy from the negative thoughts of everyone on the Enterprise.  The force would enter a body and make it perform harmful acts.  When others reacted in fear, anxiety, and anger, the force became more powerful.  Ultimately, the crew realized what was giving the force its strength.  They began to focus on happy thoughts.  Laughter drove the force away from the ship and into space.  Unable to find an entity like itself to which it could attach, the force dissipated.

My meditation was interrupted by a handyman hired by my apartment complex.  When I opened the door, the man spoke to me while looking at certain parts of my body.  He never looked me in the eye.  When I resumed my meditation, all I could think of was my anger towards this man.  It took quite a while for me to return to my meditative state.

Calming myself, I saw that the same way I allowed myself to be taken away from my meditative peace was the way that I allow myself to become uncentered throughout each day and throughout my life.  I start out on one path and, then, allow people and events to detract me, to spoil my day, to make me ungrateful, angry, resentful, or irritated.  I realized how easily negative thoughts come to my mind and how, instead of passing them through, I nurture, revisit, and build upon them.  I was able to see how I then attract certain energies to me, not necessarily the energies upon which I am focusing, but the type of energies in various forms.  A small hole can be just enough to let in a flood.

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Growing Into Your Potential

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Whatever makes you uncomfortable is your biggest opportunity for growth.  Bryant McGill

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.  Andy Rooney

If it’s challenging you, testing you, and pushing you, it’s helping you become more of who you’re meant to be.  Mandy Hale

We are not trapped or locked up in these bones.  No, no.  We are free to change.  And love changes us.  And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.  Walter Mosely

Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be and already are, but don’t know how to be.   Heath L. Buckmaster

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.  Gail Sheehy

You will either step forward into growth or you will step backward into safety.  Abraham Maslow

Spiritual growth is like learning to walk.  We stand up, fall, stand up, fall, take a step, fall, take a couple of steps, fall, walk a little better, wobble a bit, fall, run, and finally, eventually fly.  Geri Larkin

Growth Periods

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Everything happens for a reason.  It may be better to call crises “growth periods” because, when we get through them, we will surely have learned something about ourselves, our relationships with others and to the Universe.  Deepak Chopra, in his Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, states that every single problem in life is the seed for an opportunity for some greater benefit.

Looking back, I can see the lessons.  I can see the growth.  Sometimes, looking forward, all I can see are circumstances that will cause me to experience extreme anxiety.  Is it possible that I manifest in my life that which I fear the most?

Part of a poem by Henry Van Dyke reminds me that, despite all signs to the contrary, I am in control of my future:

We build our future, thought by thought
For good or ill, we know not
Thought is another name for fate
Choose then thy destiny and wait

 

The more quickly we learn the lesson of our present “growth period,” the sooner we will move on to our next stage of evolution.  The trick is to discover what the lesson is. Catastrophic losses of health, wealth, and loved ones are external phenomena that can point to something within that needs to be explored.  Perhaps your life needs to change.

We always have the opportunity to change, but don’t for whatever reason.  So life takes matters into its own hands.  It can stop us cold and say, “Will you look at me now or do you need something more drastic?”  It will keep trying to get our attention until we take the time to complete this point in our schooling and graduate to the next level.

What will it take for you?  The loss of everything in a fire or earthquake, the abandonment of friends and family, financial destitution, cancer, loss of physical mobility?  Some people go through intense trauma and still don’t advance to a higher potential.  The Universe is patient.  It has time for you to stay in that class for eons if that is your desire.

Each and every one of us has a cross to bear.  What looks good on paper or on smiling faces or inside of a gleaming Mercedes-Benz or silk dresses or three-piece suits does not always express the true story within.  Many have material things and great health, but are not balanced spiritually.  They aren’t in tune with their inner selves.  Each of us has personalized learning lessons, some of which can be experienced with material success and health and others without.

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The Center of Your Being

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What’s for you will not pass you by.  Unknown

Faith allows thing to happen.  It is the power that comes from a fearless heart.  And when a fearless heart believes, miracles happen.  Unknown

Do not look for happiness outside yourself.  The awakened see happiness inside.  Peter Deunov

People say “Everything happens for a reason.”  That “reason” is to decide what you will do with what you have right now; not what you thought you’d have, not what you were promised but didn’t get, not what you hope to have one day, but what you have right here, right now.  The more you can keep attention on that, the greater the creations within your life will be.  Make the most of every moment.  Doe Zantamata

Ego says: “Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace.”  Spirit says: “Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.”  Marianne Williamson

At the center of your being, you have the answer.  You know who you are and you know what you want.  Lao Tzu

According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness.  The first symptom is that you stop worrying.  Things don’t bother you anymore.  You become light-hearted and full of joy.  The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities.  And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.  Deepak Chopra

We Are Here to Manifest

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During my meditation, I felt that the reason I am in my body, that we are all in our bodies, is to manifest.  That is the body’s purpose – to serve as a vehicle to bring forth.  That’s why we have so much power if we can only be aware of and utilize our potential.  We are born into material form in order to continue the creative process of the Universe.  Our powers of manifestation increase in accordance with the expansion of our awareness.

With limited awareness, I have created from anxiety, fear, resentment, stress, and unhappiness.  Now, my consciousness is expanding.  I am becoming more aware of who I Am, my True Self, the Essence of me.  I Am overwhelming abundance, health, joy, love, peace, and all that is beautiful and right.  My life is fulfilling its highest potential.

Right now, the Universe is providing an opening for me.  Openings occur throughout our lives at different times for each of us, depending upon many factors (birth date and time, season, astrology, karma, stage of evolution, causes not yet known).  Sometimes, we are not prepared for these openings and can’t take advantage of them.  We have not grown sufficiently.  We don’t perceive an opening at all.  We see an illusory closed or blocked door because we are so acclimated to rejection, limitation, oppression, and denial.

Over twenty years ago, I had continuous dreams, the repeated interpretation of which was “Failure to see what is before you.”  This was so frustrating!  Why couldn’t I see?  What was in front of me?  Today, I understand more clearly.  I am better prepared for the current opening.  As a result of my many trials and tribulations, I have lessened my dependence on the external.  My inner perception is more astute.  I have worked diligently to remove obstacles to my energetic evolution, clearing channels of Flow to and from me.  I am becoming more in tune with the natural order of the Universe, with what is my natural state of Being.

Ralph Waldo Trine stated, “Power becomes manifest in us to the degree that we open ourselves to the Spirit of Infinite Power.”  Thus, when I become attached to specific material things that I want and need, or definitive outcomes, I realize that I am diminishing the infinity of my potential.  I am asking for a trinket when what is available to me is beyond my present comprehension.  When I find myself attached to a thing or circumstance, I immediately change my thoughts to “Whatever is for me is already mine.  Not my will, thine.  I now manifest all that I need and desire.”  I focus on what is universal, even multi-dimensional, and monitor expectations based upon what is presently appearing.

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This is the Moment

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May this be the moment where all that you desire manifests in your reality.  Maya Gentry

The power within has given me the power to create my own circumstances.  Maya Gentry

Every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better.  Dr. Steve Maraboli

I cannot make you understand.  I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me.  I cannot even explain it to myself.  Franz Kafka

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.  Ann Voskamp

When you possess light within, you see it externally.  Anaїs Nin

For light I go directly to the Source of light, not to any of the reflections.  Peace Pilgrim

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come.  At the darkest moment comes the light.  Joseph Campbell

Never fear shadows.  They simply mean there’s light shining somewhere nearby.  Ruth E. Renkel

I Feel a Shift

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I have had an intense urge to deep clean my house.  I have been cleaning window sills; floor baseboards; walls; sweeping ceilings; dusting books, photo albums, dolls and figurines; orange oiling everything wood.  The amount of dust and grime revealed almost reduced me to tears.  Why did I wait so long?

My office will be the culmination of my efforts.  Here, I will have to get rid of years of files, including those of my mother who passed four years ago.  While preparing her final taxes, I had to take deep breaths and step away several times before I finished.  Over the years, bit by bit, I have gotten rid of her clothes and other personal effects.  Now, I am ready to at least move to the garage for later shredding documents that evidence how she lived and handled her life.  This is a very daunting task; but, space has to be made to accommodate the new.  I have to move on.  I am ready to move on.

I feel a shift.  Like a cloud has lifted.  Energy has been cleared.  A new door has opened.

Recently, my dreams have emphasized the color brown.  In one, a brown person was dressed in brown clothes and a brown hat.  My dream book stated that brown represents the earth, spiritual death, and degradation.  Initially I thought, “That’s not good.”  After a few days of thought and meditation, I had a different reaction.

Earth represents the material.  Spiritual beings in the body must manifest the material to survive and to nurture and please ourselves.  A human body must have material sustenance and live in physical abodes.  Perhaps the meaning of my dreaming the color brown is that the manifestation of my desires and intentions is imminent.  I am about to move beyond barely surviving to abundantly thriving.

Perhaps my spiritual death reflects an evolution from caterpillar to butterfly.  I am breaking through my casing and radically transforming into something greater.  The old me is dying, dissolving, to give birth to the new.

In a past journal entry, I noted that, during meditation, I received an awareness that the removal of cherished circumstances from my life is to enable me to see the One Light.  While I was surrounded by superficial light, I refused to see the One Light.  I wrote: “it is only in darkness that you become more aware of light.”

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Say Thank You

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A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.  Epitaph on the tomb of Alexander the Great

Gratitude turns anything into enough, puts past to rest, brings tranquility to our hopes of tomorrow, and blesses today with harmony and bliss.  Joseph Rain

As we grow in awareness, our fear of loss, not having enough or being insufficient matures into love of giving, sharing, and collaboration.  Joseph Rain

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.   Meister Eckhart

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  Melody Beattie

Whatever life throws at me, I’ll take it and be grateful for it as well.  Tom Felton

Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.   Sarah Ban Breathnach

Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.  Alphonse Karr

I Have Enough

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I dreamed that I was in my car trying to park in the bus terminal in order to purchase a bus ticket.  A transit authority official told me to move my car.  I turned right onto the next street to look for another place to park.  There was a hotel, but no parking whatsoever on either side of the street.  Then my car disappeared and I was trying to park my bicycle, but I didn’t have a lock.  A woman from the hotel came up and told me that it was ok for me to park my bike across the street in a partially enclosed bus stop with a bike rack.  So I put my bike there.  It was about a block downhill back to the terminal.

I finally got to the ticket machine.  From there I could see my bike.  I kept trying to put a $5 bill into the dollar slot.  It kept being rejected.  The $5 bill returned faded.  I looked up and my bike was gone.  I woke up stressed.  My immediate thought upon awakening was, “You always make everything so difficult” or “You always do things the hard way.”  Something like that.

I sat in meditation thinking about my dream.  My interpretation was that I had a car, yet I was unsuccessfully trying to buy a bus ticket.  Then the car disappeared and was replaced by a functional bicycle.  I put the bike aside, didn’t secure it, and continued an attempt to force money into an unaccommodating receptacle.  Finally, I had nothing – no car, no bike, no bus, and money that didn’t work.  The question was why, when I had sufficient transportation, was I trying to secure less than what I had?  That search itself expressed a denial of what already existed.  Accordingly, it all went away.

The dream was trying to tell me that I already had what I was seeking.  By denying my sufficiency, I was affirming lack in my life.  Denial is wanting more without acknowledging and giving thanks for what is.

Not knowing who we are and what we have causes us to constantly focus on other than.  Causes us to look for a bus while a car is taking us where we want to go.  Causes us to not value and secure what we have while we persistently covet something more and different.

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