Living an Inspired Life Page 20

  — Begin all your conversations with Spirit with, “Make me an instrument of . . .” Then add “love,” “peace,” “joy,” “kindness,” “abundance,” “well-being,” or any other quality that you know in your heart defines the essence of the Holy Spirit.

  — As you put forgiveness to work in your life, study the ideas expressed in the two following observations:

  “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

  — HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

  “Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.”

  — JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  Assimilating these thoughts will help you to practice forgiveness. We all have times in our life when we totally understand the common phrase “there but for the grace of God go I.” Attempt to be that grace of God, and extend it to all you believe have wronged you.

  — Make it a daily practice to meditate for peace—yours and the world’s. By going within, you can make conscious contact with God. Then your Spirit energy will radiate to those around you, and to those on the other side of the world as well!

  — Remember that the healing power of God is within you. That same power, which made your body, knows how to restore it to its original state of well-being. All you have to do is remove all of the obstacles erected by you and our toxic world, and allow this healing power to flow through you.

  Before we go on to the next chapter, let’s go back to the observation made by Emanuel Swedenborg, “We are—because God is!” and add, “Not because of what God isn’t.”

  CHAPTER 15

  YOUR SPIRITUAL SOURCE KNOWS

  “It is true that Divine will prevails at all times and under all circumstances. . . . There is no need to tell God your requirements. He knows them Himself and will look after them . . .”

  — RAMANA MAHARSHI

  “The thing we surrender to becomes our power.”

  — ERNEST HOLMES

  AS THE FATHER OF EIGHT CHILDREN, it goes without saying that I’ve witnessed many occasions when a two-year-old made a request that couldn’t be accommodated. Often the request became a standoff, with the toddler crying, insisting, and even throwing a tantrum—but since I was the adult, I’d stand firm and refuse to grant the child’s wishes. Running around the block unsupervised, racing through the house with a sucker sticking out of his or her mouth, playing with electrical sockets, climbing up the stairs alone, and putting his or her fingers in a younger sibling’s eyes were some of the behaviors forbidden by me, the parent, who simply knew better.

  If we put ourselves in the place of toddlers and give our Creator the very same leeway that we, as parents, took with our children, the purpose of this metaphor becomes perfectly clear. Just as it’s absurd for a two-year-old to insist on having his or her way, our Creative Spirit doesn’t need to be reminded of what to do for us or how to go about doing it—It already knows. In fact, there’s a wonderfully enlightening quote in the Bhagavad Gita that says: “Only the fool whose mind is deluded by egotism considers himself to be the doer . . .”

  When we’re about to enter into a discourse with our Creator, it’s crucial to approach with the understanding that we aren’t the doer. It may sound a bit extreme, but this is how Immanuel Kant described our situation: “God is our owner, we are His property; His providence works for our good.” (Please don’t take the word owner as an insult—it’s only the ego that’s offended by this concept.) In other words, we needn’t presume to tell our Source what needs to be done to provide us with a happy, fulfilling life. Instead, it’s our job to change our thinking so that it’s vibrating to a frequency that matches God’s energy. And this begins by understanding that it’s impossible for God to forget anything. Unlike human parents, God is omnipotent, so it’s unnecessary to remind Him of our needs.

  Our Creative Source Never Forgets

  When I lived in New York, I had a cat named Schlum. Every October and November I noticed that his coat would get thicker in preparation for the coming winter months—even though the current temperatures might be mild or even warm, Schlum’s fur would be in the process of changing. I remember thinking about this fact and being in awe of the great Source of All Creation. There must be millions of cats, dogs, beavers, rabbits, rats, horses, and other fur-bearing animals living in the Northern Hemisphere who go through the same process every year—and our Source never forgets a single one of them.

  One August when I visited a dingo farm in Brisbane, Australia, I was told that the wild dogs were shedding their coats for the upcoming spring. Spring after August? I thought, before remembering that the seasons follow opposite patterns in the Southern Hemisphere. Wondering if this would be confusing to God, I asked the farm’s curator what would happen if a dingo was shipped on an airplane to New York in August—would its coat go from thinning to thickening, since winter would now be following summer?

  “Happens all the time,” the curator said. “We fly them up there, and when they arrive, their coats start to thicken up.” Amazing, isn’t it? Now, if God remembers to adjust the coat on a dingo flying on a 747 from Australia to New York, surely He doesn’t forget us!

  All of our life experiences—the struggles, the falls, the victories, the lessons, the emerging talents, all of it—is orchestrated by our Source. Be mindful of this fact: Whatever we decided upon with our Creator in advance of our manifestation into form is playing out right now. We must strive to always consciously remember that God hasn’t forgotten us—even though we may have edged God out—because He can’t forget us.

  Just as all that composes decomposes, our infinite self is only here for a few moments in eternity. But even though we’re on loan for this temporary human experience, we’re never ever forgotten by God, the Source that provides us and everything else that lives and breathes with the energy to sustain life. So we need to continually trust that the organizing intelligence of our Source, which is always operating in the Universe, is ever-mindful, and provides us with every blessing in abundance.

  Trusting and Surrendering

  Now how do we trust a Source that we can’t see or touch? Well, we can start by noticing the results that we attribute to It and tell ourselves, “Someone or Something is responsible for all of the ongoing infinite creation that I witness with my senses, and I’m going to trust in It from now on.” This is the kind of logic that I hope I’ve been conveying throughout the pages of this book—that it’s possible to reconnect with where we came from, and where we came from isn’t physical (as our quantum scientists now inform us). But rather than using blind trust or my attempts at logic to trust in the existence and the assistance of Spirit, I suggest that we ultimately each use our own life experience for our “trust barometer.”

  Returning to the analogy at the beginning of this chapter, most children are free-spirited little beings who don’t think about questioning their parents’ judgment. After all, mothers and fathers tend to know what’s in their offspring’s best interest, including what’s required for successful survival. These senior partners look out for their kids’ needs and direct their early life activities—and they do this as long as is necessary, which is usually until their children begin to develop the ability to trust their own instincts and apply what they’ve learned.

  As adults, we can look back on our earliest days with a strong sense of appreciation: We learned not to play in traffic, to avoid eating poisonous foods, to get enough rest each day, and so on. Today we feel thankful and appreciative that our parents were there to guide us toward the responsible, self-contained people we are now—we can appreciate that they did what was best for us, and they never forgot us.

  I trust that the analogy is clear: Our relationship with God, our All-Knowing, Never-Forgetting Senior Partner, is just like our childhood relationship with our parents. Just as we did with our mothers and fathers, we’re now choosing
to trust in the wisdom of our Creator. In other words, we don’t need to be told by virtual parents what’s best for us, and we don’t have to rely on so-called religious superiors to keep us in line because we’re no longer needy little infants. We now trust our Source because we’ve matured to a point where doubt has been supplanted by faith. Somewhere between childhood and maturity, we surrendered and trusted our parents, just as we’re now surrendering and trusting the All-Knowing, Loving Source of Creation.

  Surrender in Southeast Asia

  By beginning the process of turning our life over to a Higher Power and staying connected to Spirit in inspired living, we become more observant and less attached to our ego-driven beliefs and attitudes. A lifesaving example of this came out of the devastating tsunami of 2004, in which 305,000 people either died or were reported missing. This gigantic tidal wave affected people in Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and even as far away as the shores of Africa.

  Months after this tragedy, reports came of a nomadic tribe of people who lived on the water, traveling back and forth between a series of remote islands off the coast of Thailand. Their villages and boats had been destroyed, yet they suffered not a single casualty—it seemed like a miracle!

  It turned out that these people had a history of orally passing down the wisdom they’d gained while living on boats and on secluded islands that were far removed from modern civilization. They’d lived on the water all of their lives, as had hundreds of generations of their ancestors. Because they lived so closely with nature, they knew the water and how to catch fish with crude wooden spears, but mostly they stayed connected to Spirit. And they relayed what they learned from generation to generation.

  Tribal elders had passed down stories of tsunamis in ancient times, so when one of them noticed a sign of the shifting water patterns in 2004, he immediately knew what was coming. As the beneficiary of ancient knowing, he alerted everyone on the boats and in the villages to move to higher ground immediately. No one doubted his wisdom—everyone, without exception, left their boats and villages and moved to higher land. When the tsunami hit, it destroyed every boat and home, yet the entire tribe safely watched from a distance as the water did what they knew it was about to do.

  I believe that these nomadic people survived because they lived lives defined by being in-Spirit—there were no words indicating ego consciousness in their language. They lived in God-realization, grateful for all that they were given; consequently, they were able to join in God’s knowing and make it their own. I suggest that we can do the same, even while living in a world where so many have chosen to be in-ego rather than in-Spirit.

  Just as the tribe in Southeast Asia surrendered to their Spiritual Source and permitted ego to stay out of the picture, we too can become more observant and aware of what we need to do when we’re in-Spirit. We just need to stop believing that we’re the doer, and instead learn to listen to and trust our inner intuition—which, of course, is guiding us in collaboration with the creative power of the Universe.

  Communing with the All-Knowing

  Imagine a camera that can accomplish photographic feats that no camera has performed prior to this time. For instance, it can take pictures through concrete walls, or in the dark without benefit of a flash. But most ingeniously, it can record a person’s thoughts, producing an exact pictorial likeness of what any subject is imagining at the moment the shutter snaps. And inside the camera’s package is an invitation to talk with the creator of this remarkable device. The printed material states that he’ll be happy to discuss how and why his invention works, along with the amazing results that it can produce.

  The conversation we’d have with the creator of our new miracle gadget probably wouldn’t begin with the things we thought he’d forgotten or should or shouldn’t have done. And it’s unlikely that we’d complain about the price or how it was marketed, or attempt to convince him that we had more expertise. Instead, we’d probably use the opportunity to maximize our ability to work with our new camera and derive the greatest pleasure possible as it performed the tasks it was designed to accomplish.

  It’s safe to say that we’d approach the creator of something we can see, touch, and use—but haven’t a clue as to how it came into being—with deference, respect, and awe because we’d be so eager to absorb all that he has to offer. If this analogy is unclear, you might want to quit reading at this point and seek an expert to remove your blinders! Clearly, I believe that we should approach our Creative Source with openness, and the willingness to maximize our ability to be in-Spirit.

  When we finally “get” that our Source is all-knowing, we can approach the act of spiritual communication from an entirely egoless perspective. Our discourse must begin with a recognition that it’s impossible for us to be ignored. We can link up to all-knowingness by thinking like God—that is, by being an energetic match in our thoughts and actions, by being grateful, and by thinking of others and offering them what we desire.

  Since we know that when we ask, it is given, we must next ask God for what we want. I’m not implying that we should beg, or think that we’ve been overlooked, but rather ask in a way that takes the form of a vibrational shift in energy. So we’d request to be an instrument of God’s abundance, for instance, instead of pleading for cash. We’d simply match what we want with the All-Encompassing Abundance that is our Spiritual Source.

  Note that any- and everything that keeps us from appreciating our Spiritual Source is an impediment. This particularly includes relying on someone else or some organization without examining the truths that they insist we believe. While this may come as a surprise, Jesus wasn’t a Christian, Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist, and Mohammed wasn’t a Muslim. These were Divine spiritual beings who came here as emissaries of truth . . . yet when their truths were organized, we saw the horrors of inquisitions, mass murders, crusades, holy wars, and jihads, all in the name of “God.”

  Those who claim to represent these Divine beings of truth frequently do so from a decidedly nonspiritual perspective. When an organization includes some, yet excludes others, they’re announcing that they’re not actually preaching or teaching truth. Since God excludes no one, any religious organization that does isn’t affiliated with Him. God is all-knowing. No one else is, unless they experience pure God-realization . . . and those beings who have ever lived among us belong to a very small club.

  No one else can intervene for us in our efforts to commune with our Source of Being: We shouldn’t rely on organizations, gurus, rituals, temples, or any other outside sources as the means to make conscious contact with God. Instead, we must approach the All-Knowing Source in silent communion, and be willing to listen and receive guidance. We must speak in words of our own choosing with statements that tell God: “I know that You are all-knowing and could never forget me. I desire to align with Your all-knowingness, to have the faith that I can attract into my life all the goodness, peace, and abundance that You are. I will stay in this place of trust, for I am here to serve. I am grateful for all that You are, and all that You allow me to be.”

  Co-creating with Spirit

  Keep in mind that we can’t co-create with anyone, including our Spiritual Source, unless we’re in a place of harmony. To that end, we must suspend our false self (ego) and stop all thoughts of resistance before we can participate in creating the inspired life we desire, in perfect symmetry with Spirit. Whatever we ask of our Source in our prayerful communion will no longer be a wish or a hope—it will become a reality in our mind, just as it is in the mind of God. The how and when of its arrival, which have always troubled ego, are no longer issues.

  We maintain our optimism with thoughts such as I desire it, It’s in harmony with my Source, or It’s on its way—there’s nothing to fuss about. And then we can relax and surrender to our knowing. As Ernest Holmes reminds us: “The thing we surrender to becomes our power.” I know that the term surrender is generally associated with defeat, but there’s no victor or victim when surrendering to God—th
is isn’t about winning or losing.

  You see, what we’re doing here is giving up our false self in favor of returning to our authentic one. And when we do, we’ll meet our Spiritual Creator and become empowered to live in the same vibration with It. We’ll become co-creators by surrendering and joining the All-Knowing, All-Creating Force that allows everything to come into existence. Then our knowing replaces our doubts, and “Divine will prevails at all times.” Only now, we are in harmony with that Divine will.

  Some Suggestions for Putting the Ideas in This Chapter to Work for You

  — Put some of the well-known words of the recovery movement to practical use in your life. Let go and let God is a wonderful phrase to repeat to yourself when you feel under pressure, overly taxed, frustrated, or just plain angry. By saying these words, you’ll free yourself to allow the only real Doer there is to take over, and you’ll become an observer rather than feeling the futility of trying to control things. Try it now. Let go and let God . . . relax into the awareness that you have an All-Knowing Partner. Now what’s there to worry about?

  — When you begin to question God’s omniscience, banish that doubt from your mind. Shakespeare reminds us that “Our doubts are traitors / And make us lose the good we oft might win / By fearing to attempt.” Notice that he says “lose the good,” which is another way of saying “lose the connection to God.” In other words, your doubts keep you from joining in God’s knowing. Think about it: How can you know and doubt at the same time?