So many of us feel so powerless.  I wonder why that is?

With Pentecost coming up, my mind has been taken up with the subject of Power. Pentecost, in Christian circles, is a day when God supposedly empowered the early Christians to move forward to proclaim the “good news” with boldness and with signs and wonders.

I went to Google to see what the Sevenfold gift of the Spirit meant.  What is this sevenfold gift?

I found this traditional prayer, said by Catholics around the time of Pentecost.

As I read it I found myself somewhat puzzled and offended by the language used in this prayer.

So I asked myself; how would I write it?  Below is the result.

Rewriting of an old prayer asking for the Holy Spirit in the catholic church…in words and concepts more in keeping with our time and the new awareness that is immerging.

Here is the traditional prayer:

PRAYER FOR THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul, the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Your true disciples and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

Here is the rewrite:

O Lord Jesus Christ who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy-Spirit to finish your work in all souls and entities in the Universe, starting with your Apostles and Disciples, attend my prayer.

Grant me/us, awareness of this Gift of Power that has been bestowed in the Universe.  This Holy-Spirit is Present to us all and is the Force at the centre of each one.  It beckons me to have no fear and to allow myself to enter into the conversation with the Infinite all-powerful, everywhere present and all-knowing Essence that we call God.

With Gratitude I invite myself to let myself become aware of this living Presence bestowed upon us by the loving Heart of the Father and the Son.

Help me to become aware of the sevenfold Gift that is Spirit.

Help me grow in the awareness that I am one in Wisdom.  I am focused on the essence of life.  I know that Spirit is my core.  I remember this in every moment of my day and if I forget I am quickly brought back to the memory of this healing, knowing what to do, that is the Spirit of Wisdom.

I am also aware that I am one with Understanding.  I deeply know that Wisdom guides my mind and heart to bask in the truth at a cellular level.  I understand my unity.  I understand I am founded on a solid Rock.  I rest in that securing awareness and from moment to moment do all my actions in the same spirit.

Help me also to understand that Spirit and my spirit Counsel together and co-create.  I am in the counsel of infinite wisdom and understanding.  I know the way.

Help me know also that Fortitude wells up from within because of my awareness that I am One.  I am strong in the Strength that is given and I live in deepest humility.

I have the power to move forward for the highest Good and with enthusiasm to express all that I am meant to give in service to others.

Help me also to know the Knowledge that comes from the deepest depths of certitude.  This knowing not emanating from my neo cortex but coming from the Source that generates the whole brain and thinking mechanism.  This knowledge is the awareness that I Am.  I know God.  I know myself.  I know the other.

Help me to know the spirit of Reverence or Piety that moves my heart at one with the creator and the universe.  I do not consider my equality with God something to be ‘grasped’ but I enjoy being one in the Whole that causes me to participate fruitfully in Truth.

Help me also to be in reverential Awe and Wonder.  I am firm and secure within myself opting to stay present and loving and lifting up all of Creation in a deep reverent spirit of gratitude.  I rejoice in the mystery and the beauty of Simply Being.  In this Bliss may I rest and grow in the Awareness that I Am That Which I Am.

Jesus I embrace your Gift.  I believe Holy Spirit so fills my heart, mind, body and soul that I am being conformed to the Image of God at my core.  I surrender to the will of God to be fully who I am.  I release all old thinking that held me captive and I allow myself to move away from the ‘victim’ mindset that besets us all.  I choose to enter fully into and out of the certitude and confidence in the Love that is God, which generates the glorious liberty of the children of God.

So there it is.  A simple attempt at making more contemporary the language used in Christianity to ask for God’s help.

Maybe this could be the start of a conversation about the language Christianity has traditionally used to express itself in.  I mean the whole business of sin and evil and “woe is me wicked wretch that I am,” etc…

Aiming for new and improved ways to understand and express the old.

What say ye?

Following the session we were told to, if we wanted, to follow the guided meditations we were given on a cd.  We were to do this once a day, if we could.

So I followed direction and was pretty faithful to meditate daily.

In one way nothing seemed different yet in another very gentle and subtle sort of way I found my perception changing.

I found over the course that I was much less stressed and self-conscious at work and in meetings.

Then on the final day we were asked to share what it was we had learned with another member of the group with whom we had been partnered.

A funny thing happened as I shared.  I was describing what I had learned and all the benefits I had experienced while practicing mindfulness.

The curious thing that took place was this…  As I was listening to myself talk, and very eloquently, I might add, I heard a voice within me. It spoke without words but its message came though loud and clear.  It said “yes I hear you speaking but I’d like you to step aside because I’d like to say something…But I don’t know how to talk.” I had such a strange sensation in my body as I perceived this happening within me. I could hear myself waxing eloquent and simultaneously detect this other voice.

I was made to be very curious about this message from that part of me that felt it had no language.

So I’ve been reflecting on this since.  

This morning what came to me was the difference that exists between the language of the mind and that language of the heart.  When I thought of about it, I was struck by the question: what is the language of the heart? Then I thought to myself… oh ! I get it.

The language of the heart is not so much with words but it is more like the feelings and impressions we get from life ‘experience’.

Walking in a nice warm rain and getting soaked can feel soooo goood.  The mist in my face and the beauty of a sunlit meadow goes right to my soul without words.  Yet without words its voice is clearly heard.  It cries out that beauty is all around and it vibrates in my body and emotions and soul.

And so it is with the language of the heart.  What I remember are the gentle touches of my mother or maybe those angry eyes looking at me.  This is such a deeply felt experience.  These ‘impressions’ speak louder in us that many words.  We can try to express such experiences with words but it’s the heart, the body that remembers.

Maybe what that part of me that said “I don’t know how to talk” was saying, is that I have to remember my ‘heart’ and to get out of my head.  my heart was asking to speak again, not with words but with the deep felt sense that I get in every life situation I find myself in…

Mindful to this voice without words, I hear it beckoning me to renew acqaintances.

And then I came across this marvelous  songwriter… David Wilcox and this song.

“The compensation board has screwed me over and they are refusing to pay me justly for the finger I partially cut off while working a couple of months ago.”

“I’m getting so depressed that I don’t really want to go to work, but I have not choice.  I can’t retire.  I won’t be earning enough money to pay my bills if I do. ”

On an on went the negative talk.

Have you ever noticed a person talking like that will tend to grow spiritless?  Their face, instead of a wonderful glow, will emit a sombre grey sky look?

Of course the opposite is also true.  Someone who is a peace with themselves and who are confident about what they do and how they are perceived will ‘radiate’ a golden glow from their face and their eyes will sparkle with life.  Have you ever noticed that?

What’s the difference?  Or, what is the similarity?

The difference, of course is that one person is focused on the negative things happening to them while the other is focusing on all the ‘crap’ that is coming at them.

The similarity is that both are using inner images of themselves and ‘words’ to describe their reality.  The images are inside the mind and the words are the forms that get heard on the outside.  Images create responses from the inside and probably generate emotions and then words are used to express and communicate that inner perception.

Words are molds. They give ‘shape’ to images and ideas that we hold inside of us don’t they?  Of course what I am getting at here is that words not only shape ideas.  They also serve to shape beliefs that in turn affect how we feel about ourselves and how we see ourselves.  In that sense they mold our lives, as we saw in the two people mentioned above.

The question now becomes; how do we individually choose to mold our lives?

I have another friend who kept saying; “I am shy”.  Just think about that for a moment.  When we use the term “I am” we are very deeply identifying ourselves with the state described.  It would be better if the person in question would say; I have feelings of shyness that seem to hinder me from being more expressive.  That sounds a whole lot better than “I am shy”.  One is a feeling, a part of who they are, a fleeting thing.  The other goes right to the essence of the person.  A feeling is passing.

On the other hand when I say, I am this or that, I am pretty solidly identifying that I am statement.  Deadly wouldn’t you say?

That’s what caused feelings of hurt in me when my friend went on and on stating that others were out to get him.  This was not an isolated moment.  I have been listening to his self-talk get more and more negative over the last several years.

The result is that it is making him no longer able to function well in his work space and it is in fact attacking his physical heart.

In his case his words are forms giving form to ill health; emotionally and physically.

I just imagine words being light as a feather or as gentle as a warm summer breeze.

I also imagine words being heavy stones and crushing hammers.  Instead of breeze they are harsh daggers penetrating to the soul. They crush the life out of us.

Have you ever felt within yourself when you’ve been around someone who is constantly negative?  Have you felt like getting the hell out of their presence because it made you more and more tired as you listened?

Such is the power of words.  It seems to be very worth thinking about what comes out of our mouths.

Words bind.  Words heal.  Words lift up and tear down.  They are indeed the molds that will create your tomorrow.

We need to choose to pay attention to the words we use both within our mind and out of our mouths.  Make no mistake they have a direct impact on our belief system and on our feelings about ourselves and hence the direction of our lives.

There is a saying somewhere that said a person reaps what they sow.  Sow words of harshness and reap bitterness.  Sow words of enthusiasm and and encouragement and reap a happy life.

It seems to me to be that simple.

As for me I would rather use my words to mold a wonderful and joyful life with health, beauty, good friends, love, warmth and joy wouldn’t you?

What I focus on grows in my awareness.  We have all experienced focusing on a new car.  The first thing you know you see this car everywhere.

Does that mean that car started to appear more often?

Or, does it mean I am now tuned into this car so I notice the occasions when it comes into my field of awareness?

I venture to guess that the latter is the answer.

My insight for today is very simple.  What I have eyes for grows in interest to me and consequently I will notice it more often.

I notice that the news media, for example tends to focus on the tragic or traumatic.  I was recently involved in the evacuation of a large number of elderly people from a seniors home that caught fire.  Fortunately all turned out well and the fire was quickly contained by the good work of very efficient firemen.  No one was hurt in the incident.  One person suffered a little bit of smoke inhalation.  Of all the pictures the media could have focused on, let’s say, of staff, paramedics, firemen and women helping frail elderly people out of the building without a single injury… they took the picture of the one slight casualty receiving oxygen.  That, in the mind of the media was a clear attempt to sensationalize.

Why?  I thought to myself, did they not focus on all the ‘good’ that was going on?

Of course we are all familiar with the tendency of the media to focus on what they think the public sees as sensational.

Before I go any further on that tangent I want to bring our attention back to focus.  What we focus on GROWS in our awareness.

The media could have decided to focus on the great job of evacuation and the happy story around that couldn’t they have?

Anyway, what we focus on takes us in a certain direction is my point.  That focus is a decision.

Taking this back to my life, if I choose to focus on all the hurt and problems of my life, what will the outcome of that be?

I hazard a guess that the outcome will be more and more of the same and I will eventually get sarcastic and depressed and all the rest and I will likely get very ill, mentally, emotionally and perhaps even physically.

So, my insight for today is very simple.  FOCUS OF THE GOOD all day, as much as I can, just for today.

In this way I can build a ‘mental equivalent’ of seeing good in my mind and imagination.

This is a choice on my part.  I make a decision to ‘focus’ on good.  That does not mean I’m not aware of the not so good but I am disciplining myself to have eyes only for “Good”.

It, I believe, will build my muscle and my skill set to focus on what is right in life instead, of as the media is wont to do, namely to focus on all the problems.

It may sound like a simple solution but I think that life is indeed pretty simple.

It reminds me of another verse I know: whatever is lovely or praiseworthy, think of such things and the peace that passes all understanding will be yours.”

So, just for today, i choose to have eyes only for the “Good’.

If I don’t know who I am I will tend to be filled with fear, doubt and confusion don’t you think?

Who I am is so very important.  I am meant to have a sense of ‘who’ I am.

I know, that growing up, I asked that question a lot.  I tended to feel isolated, alone and lonely.  I don’t know exactly what caused that, but that is how I felt a lot of the time.

In fact that sense of being alone grew so strong that it caused me to really ask; who am I? and What is this life all about?

I dropped into a pit of despair as a result.

Then one day it grew so dark that I would have taken my life were it not that I was so despairing that I was totally lethargic.

I would rather have rotted than make the effort it took to take my own life.

Any way, in that pit it came to me to take a chance and call upon God, if there was such a thing.

I cried in all sincerity to this unknown supreme being in my imagination and lo and behold some message got through to me that indeed I was loved and all is well.

I heard in the depth of my soul that God is and that everything, somehow is under control.

If you had asked me, before that experience, what I thought.  You would have gotten very random and crazy unconnected thoughts.

I had no BASIS for my thought except my very limited sense of my self and what I could figure out on my own.

God was out there and I was separated from any experiential sense of that God.  I was on my own and afraid and confused and so my thinking was all over the place.

I assumed I was alone and had only limited resources to help me.

All of a sudden, with the new found certainty that God is, that came to me I had a new basis for thinking.

I gradually changed my assumption. Instead of seeing myself alone I began to be aware that I am always living, moving and having my being in this reality called God.

So my thinking changed dramatically more and more over the years as I reflected on my new assumption of being One with God instead of being alone and separated from God and people.

Assuming oneness with God has become a greater and greater assumption.  So, starting from that belief, my thinking is continually changing to reflect my assumption that I am One with God.

It was Neville who said that “what we assume will harden into fact.”

In my early days my aching heart lead to a confused mind and my thinking was crazy.

As I grow deeper into my assumption of Unity with God I find my thinking becoming more and more expansive, systematic and orderly because I have a basis for thinking.

As I assume God qualities instead of fear filled victim qualities my thinking is getting more and more focused and defined by who I believe myself to be.

So my assumption is leading me to ideas of Truth, Goodness and Beauty and hence to a greater and greater sense of Harmony.  This, all because my sense of who I am is defining my thinking.

And of course, my thinking is defining with ever more depth and clarity my sense of who I am.

So I conclude that the first and most important thing for me and my starting point is not my ‘thinking’ as such.

It is my sense of who I Am.

There you go.  I share with you my thinking for today.

Peace and joy

Norm

“Let us now let go of everything and enter into the consciousness of that which we believe.  The Spirit within each one of us is God, and it is perfect.

It is love, reason, life, truth and beauty.

It is limitless and perfect and complete and whole.

It knows no lack and not limitation.

There is nothing we have done, said or thought which rises up against us, which has power over us or which limits us; there is no memory of fear, no condemnation for previous mistakes. With the desire to free ourselves from the further indulgence in the mistake, the effect of the previous mistake is wiped out, just as light dissipates the darkness.

The Universe holds nothing against us; It can hold nothing against us, because It can know nothing unlike Itself.

Therefore, It only knows us as Perfection.

There has never been an occurrence for which we have to suffer!

Consequently, every apparent shortcoming, which could be traced to some mental or spiritual infringement of the law, is not only removed but the effect is healed.

That means there is no history to our case.  All of its history is this minute wiped out in the knowledge that today the perfect Law, the Law of Freedom, is the only Law there is in our experience.  We enter into that freedom with joy, free from every sense of sadness and burden.

We enter into it with laughter, with lightness.

It is something, which lifts us above the heaviness of morbidity and lack and limitation, into that rarer atmosphere where our opinions do not collide. We enter into it with peace, free from fear.

We know that infinite Wholeness is in us and through us and around us now, and we are conscious that we are renewed this moment, instantly and perfectly, after the image of Perfection.

We are today guided into right action in every exercise of our affairs.

Since there is no great and no small to the Infinite, all that seems of little consequence in our lives has the Divine Guidance just as perfectly  and completely as that which we think of as being tremendously important.

We are guided into the knowledge of happiness, of certainty, of wholeness and of freedom; and we know that there is that subtle Essence of the Spirit, which emanates from us at all time, healing everything It contacts.”

I Am Not Bound by Any Mistake

In scripture it is stated that ‘for freedom we have been set free…use your freedom for good.’

I believe we are indeed, guided by a loving intelligence that seeks only our good.

I trust you are having a good day.

Peace

Norm

I also choose to see that the mind in action is a kind of “LAW”.

Think about it for a minute.  This reflection is one piece in cleaning up your thinking.  The result of that is the cleaning up of your life to be what YOU desire it to be rather that always having to accept things as they come to you.

Keeping it very simple, lets think about this ‘law of mind’.  Stop and think about your own thought processes.

Isn’t it amazing that so many kinds of thoughts, ideas and impressions and judgments and conclusions be happening all at once.  Isn’t the mind a wonderful thing?

I can be talking to someone and I can be thinking about how they look, how I feel about how they look.  I can at the same time think about the phone call I am to make in a minute.  I can notice the leaves in the tree behind the person.  I can be wondering what to say or how to respond.  I can hear the voice of my mother from the past telling me to be careful, “this may not be a trustworthy person to talk with.”

I’m sure if you pay attention for a moment you get a picture of your mind in every day thinking processes.

The thing to do now is to consider this mind and compare it to a “mirror”.

Look into the mirror and notice how a definite thought, a mental statement or image, an affirmation or a denial all have an impact on the way you are going to act or the beliefs you are going to create.  These will all become a system that guides your life and your actions.

Well maybe this is easy to see, maybe not.  Some of us are not accustomed to stop long enough to ponder such things.  But, just try and do it today.  Take a look.

Every impression that you make in your mind has some sort of impact and some of them are strong enough that they become the basis of your ‘action’.

Anyway, the point I want to make here is just stick with that picture of your mind and how varied and insightful and harmonious and chaotic it can be.  It’s like whoa this is quite a picture.

A little bit all over the place isn’t it?

Now, consider the mirror analogy and take a snapshot of what you see in the mirror.

Ok.  Got it.  Now look at your life in general.  Is there a similarity?

So you can see how you think is reflected in your actual life.

On this basis we see how the Law of Mind in action is a law.

What goes on up here in the mind tends to produce similar results in the life and so this is the law of the mind.  Your using it all the time and it is having an impact on the conditions of your life.

So this law, like the law of gravity is at play.  Look at your mind in the mirror again and see how it resembles the conditions of your life.

So all the pictures your hold and respond to in your mind will affect your life somehow.

All the beliefs you hold either limit or enhance your life.  Can you see it?

I’m just beginning to see and to understand how this stuff works and I feel excited ant the unlimited possibilities a concept like I’ve just described is offering.

I conclude then that the Law of Mind is always operating.

It is a question of becoming aware and conscious of it.

It is an invitation to realize this truth and then to ‘use’ it to create what you desire instead of just taking what happens to you.

Isn’t that often the way we live our lives?  We hope and pray something will come our way but we forget that what the mind is like is the thing that determines what we get.

So today I’m reflecting on this and I’m thrilled at the principle I’m writing about.

This business of noticing what is going on in our mind and then making a decision to clean up our thinking and making it such that we have in the mirror a mind that is orderly and clear and precise, is, I agree somewhat of a challenge.  The gauntlet is placed before us.

What is interesting to me in this is that I notice I have much more choice and power than I ever dreamed.  I am in control of what is happening in my life.  Gee whiz can I accept that?

Big question.

Do I take the responsibility to clean up my mind, to be aware of its action because, for sure it is affecting my life?  Do I take my ‘responsibility as the image-maker to create only the images that correspond to the good I desire for others and myself?

Of course I’m aware this may be easier said than done and that this is just one tiny piece of a great puzzle and I propose to keep talking about in the days to come to bring to light the many more angles in this matter of the ‘law of Mind in Action.’

Peace

Joy and right action guide us.

Norm

Jesus said: “I know where I come from and I know where I am going”.  “I and the Father are one”.  “If you have seen me you have seen the Father”

Don’t let the word Father turn you off.  Just change it to Source or to the best image you can come up with of someone who truly desires only Good for you.

Imagine it if you have to and forgive all the hurt that anyone has done to you in the name of father or any kind of authority.  Just imagine for a minute that there is actually a power greater than you that is truly out to help and support and evolve you.

The point is, Jesus understood His Unity with this benevolent source.  He was able to continue to say that even when the darkness got so thick that He cried out: My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”  At that moment the lights went out in the Universe and all was quiet.  There was the feeling of a strange and eerie emptiness.

This Jesus figure, that represents light, that did never loose sight of the fact that He was Light…   let go…

Into the dark…  There took place a wonderful conversation beyond words with all that was unresolved and unnamed in the universe.

All those who lived and died not fully understanding what it’s all about were mystically addressed during that time when the One who understood His connection with Light seemed to be snuffed out… engulfed by the dark.

That mystical conversation was the shifting point.  In such a perfect identification with darkness or weakness… the Christ was bringing to an end a certain way of being.  That being had been based on an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth.  It was based on ‘fighting to survive’.  But here was an example of someone who identified completely with the light and so was able to rest completely in the dark with peace and serenity and that spoke to the dark and broke its power on the mind and imagination of humanity.

It taught that victory comes not in fighting back and being brave and getting our just due.

The mystical conversation simply said;  Know where you come from, Identify completely with it to the point where you can surrender to the apparent dark and you will see and experience that dark and, so called death, have not power to hold you.

In apparent weakness we are made strong but the source of that strength is the initial awareness and identification with the Source of all being.

Remember Jesus’ saying that He knew where He came from and where He was going.

That is the key.

That identification enabled Him to have the mystical dialogue with the dark and death and prove that in the serenity of faith in a power greater than ourselves all is well.

A shift was made in the dark and a new day dawned.  A new direction was given.  This was now a day where love prevailed and a refusal to identify with pain, sorrow and separation and feeling like we are alone to fight insurmountable forces.

Know where you come from.  Rehearse it if you have to and then rest and relax in an ever growing consciousness that you are not separated but you are One.  The Source never left.  It is We who leave in our minds and feelings.

The Source waits for us to come to understand that we need no longer to be victims to thinking we are alone and separated from love, light and life.

I am One with Life… to believe that, is our assignment for the day, even when the darkness comes and we may be tempted to believe :”my god my god why have you forsaken me?”

In the affirmation of Light in the darkness is where the SHIFT takes place and a new beginning, a new springtime of causation brings about a more desired effect.

Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.  Identification with Light and Spirit is the 1st step.

I open a page of my journal and my daily reflection. I choose to share with you.

Peace, namaste.

Norm

It is a quote from Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, according to the Bible.

Here it is: Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you.

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth… (Proverbs 5:15-18)

This is what these words mean to me:  Drink water from your own cistern means stay within your own mind, heart and body.  The cistern is the body, the container along with your mind and heart.  I add to that a comment that answers come from within and not outside of us.

That line of thinking is supported by the verse — Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?

When we start to look for answers outside of ourselves we get scattered.  Have you ever noticed that?  I have.  Even late into my life when someone stood beside me when I was writing a test I would feel so self conscious and afraid.  What was that about?  It said I was looking for someone from the outside to judge my work.  I no longer had any confidence in my self.  I had been conditioned to believe someone out there had the answer and was the judge of my work.

I no longer enjoyed what came up from my cistern, my well, my inspiration and was letting others determine my thought.

My thought became split between what came up in me and what I thought others thought.  My thinking was no longer mine.  It became like streams of water in the streets.  It was fragmented because my thoughts were now conditioned by people outside of me. I either feared them or was in awe of them.

It’s as if my cistern became cracked and the water was running all over.  My thought process got all mixed up.

I guess I lost confidence in my self.

Here comes the reminder in this verse. “Let them be for yourself alone and not for the strangers with you”

In other words let your thoughts, feelings and impressions be your own.  Enjoy them and trust them and surely do not let the stranger determine for you what they mean.

After all they are your thoughts.

Somewhere in the process of growing up we learn to distrust our own thought and we bear the consequences.  We feel like broken cistern.  Like vessels who’s streams are running everywhere in the streets.

We have the privilege and the ability to come back, as the verse says: Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.

That means the person you are is like a vessel.  Your mind is under your control, inside that vessel.  Enjoy it.  This is the wife of your youth.  This is you.  The you you are born to be. Isn’t that is wonderful?  The wife of you youth is the you, you appeared as in this world.

These verses tell us to remember who we are and to learn to trust again the ideas, thoughts and inspirations that come from within.  God is not out there, after all.  God is truly within and so we have a basis upon which to trust our own thinking.

In brief the words from Proverbs are telling us to “stop living from outside of ourselves.”  “IDENTIFY WITH YOUR SELF–YOUR CISTERN, YOUR VESSEL.”

“Break the identification with the answers coming from outside”.  “Trust your SELF.” “Stop wasting your energy by trying to please someone else.”

“Come back to your Self and Trust It”

After all == it’s all we’ve got isn’t it?  What you identified with – the outside (streams) or the inside (cistern) governs your life subconsciously and you wonder why your life is as it is.

The above reading has given you a clue.

This is how I see it.

How do you see it?

Peace

Norm

We need to release the pass by refusing to go over it again and again, especially if it is a negative experience.  We can however use past positive experiences and the feelings associated with them to remember and in that way raise our energy in the present moment.  This good energy can then transfer into the next moment.

We need to let go the future in terms of worry about what might happen especially if it is connected to a bad past experience.  But here again if the thought of something good coming up makes us feel excited and energized then we can also use that positive energy to build into the ‘present’ moment.  In this way the past and the future play into the ‘present’.  But it is this moment that is the building block for the next moment.

What is happening ‘now’?  Respond by correcting the feeling and the thought if it is negative and discouraging and affirm it and encourage it if it is positive and constructive.

In Thomas Trowards ‘The Principle of Guidance’ he states: “GUIDANCE ranks as the first principle in the order or completeness of a perfect whole and it gives value to all our other powers by placing them in their due relation to one another.”

So the now is where we need to give  guidance to the next step in our life.  If we are sad and depressed we need to ‘guide’ our mind to remember happier times and moments so as to ‘guide’ the vibration we are sending out that will draw to us the coming circumstances in our lives.

Now we need to remind ourselves that we are on track.  It’s like being on the highway.  Our goal might be New York so we need from time to time to remember that that city is where we want to go and to remember from where we have have come and confirm that indeed we are still on the right highway to get us to our destination.  In this illustration its easier in that the highway is clearly helping us stay on course but the principle is the same.  In fact with a moment of inattentiveness we may have missed a turn and may find ourselves on the wrong road.

The role of the “now” is to connect us to the past and keep us focused to the future but it is all done in ‘this moment’.  How important is this moment?  In the language of St. Paul; “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.”  Now is the gift we are given so as to be consciously aware that we are on the right track.  The Now’s first principle is to enable us to exercise the principle of guidance and to ask for guidance and to follow that guidance so as to arrive at our desired goal. I am actively engaged in the crafting of my future by the choices I make in this moment.

Is this worth considering?  Is this worth being aware of?  How precious is this moment?

Peace

Norm