This week in reading some articles written by Lyman Reed from his blog "Creating a Better Life," I ran across two videos of information by the creators of http://www.abraham-hicks.com. As I told Lyman in a comment, I bought one of the Abraham books sometime in the past six months. When it came in the mail, I immediately misplaced the book. I wasn't ready to receive the information that was in it. I had some internal resistance to the Abraham material. Maybe the timing was off.
After seeing the two videos, one of which is the reason that I am writing this article, I have changed my mind and intend to find the book. I am interested in the material after watching the video "Abraham-Hicks Video: What is God?" You will find this video at Lyman's "Creating a Better Life" at http://creatingabetterlife.net/2008/01/09/abraham-hicks-video-what-is-god/ .
Esther Hicks is the one presenting the video. Below you will find the notes that I took while watching the video "What is God?". These are the words that Esther said that resonated with me.
God is so much more than man's image of God, man's image of who God is.
In seeing himself as inferior to God, man has further separated himself from God.
In reaching for God, we push Him away by making him out there separate from ourselves.
Who am I? You are good.
How am I doing? Exceptionally well.
Being the God that you are in the physical form, you are the God that is the creator of your reality.
Thank you Lyman for sharing these videos. I invite you all to go to Lyman site and watch these wonderful videos if you haven't seen them already.
About ten years ago, I was sitting in a Unity church class trying to describe my image of God. I remember the "ah-ha" moment that I had when I realized that in trying to describe God, that image had changed. I made a huge leap forward in my understanding of God and my relationship to God in that moment. I still can't describe God to you. I doubt that anyone can. Like Lyman said in his article, God is so far beyond our understanding. Can you truly imagine what being omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnicient means? I can't. My little mind just can't imagine that big. That night I realized as I grew spiritually, so did my idea of what God is truly like. Have a glorious day.
Patricia
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Ego-centered selfishness vs. Spirit-centered Selfishness
My husband Daniel and I just got back from having lunch with a friend. On the way back home, I happened to see a church sign that said, "Love God, Love your neighbor, Serve Both." I agree with that statement as far as it goes.
Daniel and I got into a discussion when I told him that the sign left out the most important part of "Love Yourself." Even the Bible says to "Love your neighbor as yourself." Most churches forget the "as yourself" part when they are doing sermons. I can get quite passionate about this topic because I had to learn to love myself before I could truly love anybody else. That is what I believe the Bible quote is telling us.
Back to our discussion, Daniel said, "What about the 20 % of the population (Don't ask me where he got his percentage. He probably made it up to make his point.) that love only themselves?" I told him that is not real love.
Real love is not about being selfish. Loving yourself is not about being selfish. Taking care of yourself so that you are full and able to give to others is different than being so selfish that you are completely self-centered. Ego-centered might be a better way to phrase that. When you are ego filled you have nothing that you want to give to others unless you get something back in exchange for what you have given.
Ego-centered people don't love themselves. They become ego-centered to overcompensate for the fact that they don't love themselves. Ego doesn't want us to love ourselves. It wants us to love it. When you love ego, it feels puffed up and self-important and gratified to be the center of your attention. Ego does nothing for anyone else without expecting something in return. Ego-centered people are constantly striving for the next achievement or the next pay-off so they can feel self-important. The reality is that they are not "self" important. Very often, they hate themselves and are very busy being ego-centered in order to hide their true feelings of self-hatred.
When you truly love yourself, you become spirit-centered or Self-centered. When you become Self-centered, you do everything out of love for God, yourself and others. When you are Self-centered, you listen to your body when it tells you what it needs---rest, food, less food, water, less stress, more exercise. When you are Self-centered you are grounded in the Christ-consciousness that says we are all one. Taking care of your needs is not selfish. It is Selfish. There is a difference.
Daniel and I got into a discussion when I told him that the sign left out the most important part of "Love Yourself." Even the Bible says to "Love your neighbor as yourself." Most churches forget the "as yourself" part when they are doing sermons. I can get quite passionate about this topic because I had to learn to love myself before I could truly love anybody else. That is what I believe the Bible quote is telling us.
Back to our discussion, Daniel said, "What about the 20 % of the population (Don't ask me where he got his percentage. He probably made it up to make his point.) that love only themselves?" I told him that is not real love.
Real love is not about being selfish. Loving yourself is not about being selfish. Taking care of yourself so that you are full and able to give to others is different than being so selfish that you are completely self-centered. Ego-centered might be a better way to phrase that. When you are ego filled you have nothing that you want to give to others unless you get something back in exchange for what you have given.
Ego-centered people don't love themselves. They become ego-centered to overcompensate for the fact that they don't love themselves. Ego doesn't want us to love ourselves. It wants us to love it. When you love ego, it feels puffed up and self-important and gratified to be the center of your attention. Ego does nothing for anyone else without expecting something in return. Ego-centered people are constantly striving for the next achievement or the next pay-off so they can feel self-important. The reality is that they are not "self" important. Very often, they hate themselves and are very busy being ego-centered in order to hide their true feelings of self-hatred.
When you truly love yourself, you become spirit-centered or Self-centered. When you become Self-centered, you do everything out of love for God, yourself and others. When you are Self-centered, you listen to your body when it tells you what it needs---rest, food, less food, water, less stress, more exercise. When you are Self-centered you are grounded in the Christ-consciousness that says we are all one. Taking care of your needs is not selfish. It is Selfish. There is a difference.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A New Earth---1st Class
Well, tonight Oprah and Eckhart Tolle gave their first international class on Tolle's book A New Earth. How many of you were able to tune in to the webcast on Monday, March 3? I got on and "took my seat" at 7:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in the USA. The pre-class presentation was pretty good. Then when Oprah and Tolle sat down for the class, the audio and video kept stopping and starting. It finally got so bad that I got off of my computer and went and watched "Medium" on TV at 9:00 p.m.
Here are the few notes that I did take from the class before I gave up on the audio/video problems:
On page 7 of the book A New Earth, it says that reading the book will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It can only awaken those who are ready to be awakened.
What does Life or God want from you? What is your life purpose? What do you want from Life? Don't try to define what your purpose is. Ask Life what has as your purpose.
When Oprah asked about how he wrote his books (The Power of Now and A New Earth), Eckhart Tolle said that the books were inside of him wanting to be written. He set up a time for writing each day and honored that time and space. Some days the words flowed and other days just a few sentences might come out.
Most thinking is repetitive and unnecessary.
Be open and trusting to the flow of Life.
One of the exercises this week to do before the class was to spend time just looking at and being with a flower without labeling it as anything. Tolle said that flowers are representative of the spiritual realm. He said that flowers are like messengers from another realm. Spend time with them. Contemplate them without labeling them. You can do that with a tree also. Just be with their essence. They aren't concerned with the past or the future. They live in the present. Be like a baby learning about the flower or the tree for your very first time.
Religion can be an open door into spirituality.
Someone asked, "Why now? Why is all of this happening right now?" Tolle said that things don't happen until there is a need for them to happen. He said that we need to step out of the collective ego.
This was all the notes that I was able to take before the stops with the video and audio got worse and I turned the class off. Maybe this will be enough to give you an appetite for reading the book. Because of the technical difficulties, tonight's class was a disappointment for me. I don't know if it was my computer or if others were having the same difficulty. I sent in a question to the Oprah staff asking about it. I hope your experience was better than mine.
Patricia
Here are the few notes that I did take from the class before I gave up on the audio/video problems:
On page 7 of the book A New Earth, it says that reading the book will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It can only awaken those who are ready to be awakened.
What does Life or God want from you? What is your life purpose? What do you want from Life? Don't try to define what your purpose is. Ask Life what has as your purpose.
When Oprah asked about how he wrote his books (The Power of Now and A New Earth), Eckhart Tolle said that the books were inside of him wanting to be written. He set up a time for writing each day and honored that time and space. Some days the words flowed and other days just a few sentences might come out.
Most thinking is repetitive and unnecessary.
Be open and trusting to the flow of Life.
One of the exercises this week to do before the class was to spend time just looking at and being with a flower without labeling it as anything. Tolle said that flowers are representative of the spiritual realm. He said that flowers are like messengers from another realm. Spend time with them. Contemplate them without labeling them. You can do that with a tree also. Just be with their essence. They aren't concerned with the past or the future. They live in the present. Be like a baby learning about the flower or the tree for your very first time.
Religion can be an open door into spirituality.
Someone asked, "Why now? Why is all of this happening right now?" Tolle said that things don't happen until there is a need for them to happen. He said that we need to step out of the collective ego.
This was all the notes that I was able to take before the stops with the video and audio got worse and I turned the class off. Maybe this will be enough to give you an appetite for reading the book. Because of the technical difficulties, tonight's class was a disappointment for me. I don't know if it was my computer or if others were having the same difficulty. I sent in a question to the Oprah staff asking about it. I hope your experience was better than mine.
Patricia
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Wisdom Of Letting Go
the Little book of Letting go, a revolutionary 30-day program to Cleanse your Mind, Lift your Spirit and Replenish your Soul, written by Hugh Prater in 2000 was introduced to me by a friend who passed the book on when she no longer had room in her book shelf. I instantly grabbed onto the book when I saw the title. Boy, am I glad that I did. This "Little book" as Hugh Prater calls it is so packed with wisom. I just had to share it even though I just started reading it.
One of the first gems of wisdom that I read was on page 5:
"Not only do we give people a piece of our mind, we give them a piece of our happiness, wholeness, focus, and sometimes, a piece of our health."
Who are you giving your piece/peace of mind to? What will it take for you to stop giving away your peace? These are questions I am going to start asking myself. How about you?
Also on page 5 is the following statements:
"Our lives are filled with useless battles because our minds are filled with useless thoughts. We never finish thinking about anything. We carry around unhappy scenes from the past as if they are still happening, and we chew on the memory of whatever we just did. This glut of thoughts profoundly affects the world we perceive and the life we live."
I know that I am guilty of doing this. What parts of the past are you still holding on to? What in your past is still hurting you? What will it take for you to let go of that hurt and those past events or relationships? What will give you closure? I am asking myself these same questions that I am asking you.
This statement on page 7 comes from Hugh Prater's wife, Gayle:
"Make your state of mind more important than what you are doing."
To do this, you have to ask the question, "What is important to your peace of mind?" None of the rest is important. A good question to ask yourself is, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" That simple question should stop some of the outward battles that the ego likes to involve you in.
This is just a brief sharing of the treasures that I have found in this book just in the first few pages. I will share more as I get further into the pages of this book.
Peace and blessings to you.
Patricia
One of the first gems of wisdom that I read was on page 5:
"Not only do we give people a piece of our mind, we give them a piece of our happiness, wholeness, focus, and sometimes, a piece of our health."
Who are you giving your piece/peace of mind to? What will it take for you to stop giving away your peace? These are questions I am going to start asking myself. How about you?
Also on page 5 is the following statements:
"Our lives are filled with useless battles because our minds are filled with useless thoughts. We never finish thinking about anything. We carry around unhappy scenes from the past as if they are still happening, and we chew on the memory of whatever we just did. This glut of thoughts profoundly affects the world we perceive and the life we live."
I know that I am guilty of doing this. What parts of the past are you still holding on to? What in your past is still hurting you? What will it take for you to let go of that hurt and those past events or relationships? What will give you closure? I am asking myself these same questions that I am asking you.
This statement on page 7 comes from Hugh Prater's wife, Gayle:
"Make your state of mind more important than what you are doing."
To do this, you have to ask the question, "What is important to your peace of mind?" None of the rest is important. A good question to ask yourself is, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" That simple question should stop some of the outward battles that the ego likes to involve you in.
This is just a brief sharing of the treasures that I have found in this book just in the first few pages. I will share more as I get further into the pages of this book.
Peace and blessings to you.
Patricia
Saturday, March 1, 2008
A New Earth
Have you signed up for Oprah's new online class. It isn't too late to reserve your seat. I would do it as soon as possible. There are a few technical things to do on your computer to make sure that you can get the webcast with very simple simple step by step directions. If I can do it, anybody can. There are also a few pre-show time homework items for you to do as well as read the first chapter of the book "A New Earth" written by Eckhart Tolle.
To reserve your seat for this event, you also have to join the Oprah Book Club or her site http://www.oprah.com . This is a world-wide event. I don't think anybody has done anything on this scale before on TV or the internet. It is a first and will possibly have wide spread results. This book can literally change the world by helping us to change our thinking. The first class starts at 8:00 PM C.S.T. in the U. S. on Monday, March 3, 2008 so time is short if you want to participate.
I bought my book from Amazon.com before Oprah decided to include this book in her book club. I have slowly been reading and absorbing a little at a time. That is the way that I like to read my books.
I signed up for this class on Thursday evening after seeing Oprah talk about it on her show.
One of the exercises that you will participate in is to write down 2 of your favorite quotes from the book, one chapter at a time as we go along. My first two quotes are as follows:
1. "An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state." (page 7)
I have always said that you can't change what you aren't aware of. You must have awareness as the first step. If you aren't aware, what can you do but continue to do what you have always done?
2. "You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge."
The paragraph goes on to say, "But it (goodness) can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness."
As my friend Slade tells me, "Trying" doesn't accomplish anything. It gives you a reason to fail. Trying is an excuse that you give yourself in case you fail. When is the last time that you said, "Well, I tried my best." Slade tells us to "Do rather than try." I think this principle would apply to the above statement quite well.
Basically what the Eckhart Tolle statement above says to me is You don't have to try to good because you already are good at the center of your being. You just have to become aware that you already are good and be good. That sounds so simple but it probably isn't for most of us because we "try" too hard.
Just BE.
Patricia
My creativity comes from the Universe and benefits the Universe through the sharing of my journey.
To reserve your seat for this event, you also have to join the Oprah Book Club or her site http://www.oprah.com . This is a world-wide event. I don't think anybody has done anything on this scale before on TV or the internet. It is a first and will possibly have wide spread results. This book can literally change the world by helping us to change our thinking. The first class starts at 8:00 PM C.S.T. in the U. S. on Monday, March 3, 2008 so time is short if you want to participate.
I bought my book from Amazon.com before Oprah decided to include this book in her book club. I have slowly been reading and absorbing a little at a time. That is the way that I like to read my books.
I signed up for this class on Thursday evening after seeing Oprah talk about it on her show.
One of the exercises that you will participate in is to write down 2 of your favorite quotes from the book, one chapter at a time as we go along. My first two quotes are as follows:
1. "An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state." (page 7)
I have always said that you can't change what you aren't aware of. You must have awareness as the first step. If you aren't aware, what can you do but continue to do what you have always done?
2. "You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge."
The paragraph goes on to say, "But it (goodness) can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness."
As my friend Slade tells me, "Trying" doesn't accomplish anything. It gives you a reason to fail. Trying is an excuse that you give yourself in case you fail. When is the last time that you said, "Well, I tried my best." Slade tells us to "Do rather than try." I think this principle would apply to the above statement quite well.
Basically what the Eckhart Tolle statement above says to me is You don't have to try to good because you already are good at the center of your being. You just have to become aware that you already are good and be good. That sounds so simple but it probably isn't for most of us because we "try" too hard.
Just BE.
Patricia
My creativity comes from the Universe and benefits the Universe through the sharing of my journey.
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