— Experience the apprehension and do it anyway! It’s the doing that brings you to a new level of inspiration, so don’t deny your fear. Allow the panic to come, and then move in the direction of facing it. Visualize the fear right in front of you. Stare it down and tell it how you truly feel and what you intend to become: “I’m stronger than you. I have my Creator here with me as a Senior Consultant, so I’m no longer willing to allow you to have dominance in my life. I’m scared, but I’m also taking action.”
— Look for opportunities that you’re going to create to feel inspired. In my afternoon of inspiration described in this chapter, I made a specific decision to act in-Spirit. It was my choice. I was seeking those situations, and if they hadn’t transpired, I would have made them happen. Once you get proficient at manufacturing circumstances that allow you to be inspirational, you’ll begin to see these situations materializing all around you every day.
— Finally, don’t ever quit. Never give up on yourself or feel shame as a result of not fulfilling your objectives to be a being of inspiration. Every fall that you take is a gift, and every relapse is a glorious opportunity—after all, without them you can’t manifest the energy to get to a higher place.
There it is—a blueprint for taking action to live from inspiration. These strategies, as simple as they may seem, will bring you to a new level of inspiration if they’re just adopted one day at a time. But reconnecting to Spirit can all happen in one day—this day. As one of my favorite Chinese proverbs reminds us:
I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand.
If you want to understand inspiration, it will require some doing. So remember what the Dalai Lama says: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
I close Part III of this book with the simple yet profound words of Shakespeare: “Action is eloquence.”
PART IV
CONVERSING WITH YOUR SPIRITUAL SOURCE
“The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.”
— SOCRATES
CHAPTER 14
YOUR SPIRITUAL SOURCE CAN ONLY BE WHAT IT IS
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of His creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own—a God, in short, who but is a reflection of human frailty.”
— ALBERT EINSTEIN
“We are—because God is!”
— EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
IMAGINE A WAREHOUSE FILLED, from floor to ceiling, with coconuts—and one of them believes and acts as if it were a raisin. “Raisin” hasn’t a clue that it’s a coconut, too, and the other coconuts haven’t a clue that Raisin doesn’t know it’s a coconut. Get the picture? When Raisin wonders why it’s all dried up and wrinkled, the coconuts don’t respond, because they only see another coconut (albeit a crazy one). In order to get the warehouse coconuts to respond, the raisin will have to communicate as the coconut it really is. All coconuts, just like us, cannot be anything other than what they are.
If we continue our lighthearted coconut/raisin metaphor and apply it to our Creator, we can see that if we (and coconuts) can’t be something we’re not, then we need to avoid asking our Creator to be or talk as if It’s something It’s not. Please pay close attention to the words that follow. They’re from The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard (Hay House, 2004), a special-delivery agent of A Course in Miracles: “Because your idea is not of God, He does not respond to it. To respond to it would be to give it reality. If God Himself were to acknowledge anything except the idea of perfect oneness, then there would no longer be perfect oneness.”
When we understand these words, it changes the way we approach God, Who can’t and doesn’t interact with ideas that are false. We can then begin to clarify our knowing that Spirit is true and ego is false by realizing that we must come to God in terms that are of God in our prayers and our discourses. We’ll know that we need to put ego aside and make a new attempt to speak to our Source in terms of It. This can be a radical shift, especially if we’ve always approached prayer and making conscious contact with God from the perspective of ego.
Five Characteristics of God
Let’s now examine the elements that most of us agree define the essence of our Creator, along with how they can help us sensibly approach Him.
1. God Is Love
We came from love, and we desire to return to that heaven while still on Earth. I repeat Emerson’s appropriate observation that “love is our highest word and the synonym for God”—in other words, if we dwell in love, we dwell in God. If God is love and cannot be anything other than what God is, and we wish to have a dialogue with Him, then it seems to me that we come to our Source in love or we’re wasting our time. God cannot and will not respond to unloving requests.
Unloving prayers, which originate in arrogance, hatred, or fear, are the work of ego, so they won’t be answered. In fact, they won’t even be heard. God’s message is to love all people, without exception, so we can be in vibrational harmony with Him. As the Bible reminds us, “[W]e are all members of one body” (Eph. 4:25) and “Let everything you do be done in love” (7 Cor. 16:14).
Now the way to approach God for guidance and help with anything in our life is to do so from the vantage point of forgiveness—for any and all we perceive to have wronged us, and for ourselves. Think about it: How can we expect God to hear our request for help in improving a relationship when we have hatred in our heart because of supposed misdeeds and maltreatment? God, Who only knows love, will have no idea what we’re talking about.
No matter what our religion, whenever we want to discourse with our Source of Being, we must do so without malice or hatred in our heart. In this way, we’ll shift our vibrational energy to a frequency that harmonizes with the highest vibration in the Universe, which, of course, is that of Spirit. As Saint Francis instructs so simply, “Where there is hatred, let [us] sow love.”
Love and forgiveness will then activate the dormant forces I wrote about in the opening chapters of this book—that is, the right people and events will materialize synchronistically. This is because we’re in-Spirit, remembering that God simply can’t help if we expect Him to hear anything other than love and forgiveness. As Martin Luther King, Jr., once said: “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.” This seems to say it all.
So in the private, quiet, prayerful moments of asking for God’s help, don’t ask Him to help defeat others in any way; rather, pray: “Dear God, make me an instrument of Thy love. I want to be like You. I have forgiven them, and I have forgiven myself.” And remember that there can be no forgiveness without love—and without love, there can be no way of being heard by our Source.
2. God Is Peace
One of the most-quoted verses in the Old Testament (which may also be my favorite biblical offering) is this: “Be still, and know that I am God.” So a corollary of this might then be: “Be agitated and turbulent, and you will never know God.”
In order to communicate with our Source, it’s vital to recall that It can only be what It is. And what It is, is peace and stillness. After all, creation doesn’t take place in a violent manner—it’s actually calm and peaceful. That is, movement from the invisible realm of Spirit into the material world of form isn’t a loud, chaotic, explosive process—it’s actually done with no fanfare at all. In the time it takes to read this chapter, millions upon millions of new life forms will emerge into this world, all without thunderclaps or fireworks. This is because peace is all that Spirit knows.
Now, if we approach God in a panic or with a frenzied, fearful, overly anxious demeanor, He’s not going to help. You see, when we commune with our Source in a way that reflects an absence of peace, we’ll have these nonpeaceful beliefs continually reinforced. By holding on to our panic, we’ll believe even more in the disorder th
at our mind and body are accustomed to. Furthermore, we’ll leave our prayerful state believing that our petitions aren’t being answered, and very likely blame God for creating and allowing war and the other evils that define the world. Yet blaming God for the absence of peace is like the coconut who believes it’s a raisin blaming the other coconuts for its wrinkled, dried-up life. The “raisin” is living an illusion, and so are we when we blame God for the absence of peace.
Along with praying or communing with our Source with peace in our heart, we must “be still.” This means taking time to get quiet before meditating, and also monitoring our breathing. As we exhale, we can train ourselves to let go of all of our nonpeaceful thoughts, and as we inhale, we can breathe in Spirit.
We can also ask Saint Francis to guide us. He had very little peace in his lifetime, but when he prayed, he knew what his Source was like. Saint Francis wanted to be in-Spirit, so rather than asking God to deliver him some peace so that he could escape the disorder and chaos he saw all around him, he’d request, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.” In other words, Saint Francis knew that God was peace, so in his prayer, he asked to be returned to a state where he’d be like his Creator.
We can keep reminding ourselves that all of the nonpeace that’s in the world is not of God, it’s of ego . . . then we can ask to be helped back to His peace. This approach will attract the assistance we’re requesting—it’s all about matching up the vibrational energy of our desire for peace with thoughts and behaviors that are consistently peaceful with those desires.
3. God Is All-Inclusive
We won’t be heard by, or receive assistance from, our Source if we’re touting our separateness from our fellow humans. You see, when we seek special individual favors from God, or even when we seek to converse with our Source from this perspective, we’re once again living an illusion. If God were to acknowledge our belief in separation, as Gary Renard suggests, perfect oneness wouldn’t and couldn’t exist. It’s impossible for a Source that creates everyone (and therefore is in everyone) to even have a dialogue with someone who’s harboring ideas of their specialness or separation from everyone else.
We must be in a space of loving everyone—more than that, we’ve got to see ourselves as connected to everyone—in order to get the attention of our Source. So we’ve got to make every effort to avoid any thought that sets us apart from another being, such as a request to defeat someone, to have more than anyone else, to win a contest, to receive special attention on a job application, or to be considered first among many. These kinds of thoughts simply won’t be recognized by a Source that’s in all of the people we’re asking to be given preferential treatment over.
Similarly, the great folly of war is the incredulous ignorance of the nature of God. When our politicians ask God to bless America, for instance, and to help us kill more of our “enemies” and win, it’s analogous to having our body engage in a war in which our legs and lower torso are fighting against our arms and upper torso. Our body consists of all of its parts, so any war between them would surely kill the entire body. The body, just like God, can’t process any talk of separation.
In conversing with our Source (as always), we strive to be more like It. So we need to see ourselves as connected to everyone in the Universe as we enter into prayer. Then we can ask for guidance and assistance in summoning that All-Inclusive Spirit: “Make me an instrument of You. Allow me to see You in everyone I encounter. Help me to see myself in others and to extend first to them what I aspire to myself. I’ve noticed that this is how You are, and I wish to be just like You.”
This is the kind of dialogue that activates the dormant forces I’ve spoken of. The key is getting past our ego-based idea of separation and instead seeing ourselves a part of the oneness of all. As Thomas Aquinas put it so succinctly: “True peace consists in not separating ourselves from the will of God.”
4. God Is Abundance
Picture this: A group of one-gallon containers has the capacity to speak to each other. One of them wants to discuss its emptiness with one that’s always known fullness. “Full Gallon” probably won’t be able to relate to the quandary of “Empty Gallon,” since no matter how much Empty Gallon experiences lack, Full Gallon won’t be able to understand because it can’t be anything other than what it is.
While this is a crude example, it nevertheless illustrates our predicament when we attempt to engage in a discourse with God, a Source that’s only known abundance, and ask it to relate to and correct our perceived shortages. Trust me, God knows nothing of lack, and there’s enough of everything to go around. All of God’s gifts, including life itself, are given as freely and abundantly as oxygen, sunlight, and water.
As Saint Paul once said: “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance.” So why is there so much apparent shortage in the world, including people starving and living in poverty, and millions of folks having the persistent problem of too much month left at the end of the money? Well, what I can say for certain is that God is not to blame—there’s more than enough to go around. After all, we came from a place that knows nothing of deprivation, and we arrived on a planet that has the capacity to grow the food and slake the thirst of every one of its inhabitants many times over.
As a species, we human beings have brought the ideas of deficiencies and depletions of God’s gifts on ourselves, largely by taking very un-God-like actions. God serves all of us, but our greed has made us forget others and focus only on ourselves. As a people and as individuals, we’ve brought lack to our lives, and we can only fix this deficiency by becoming more like our Always-Serving, Endlessly Abundant Spiritual Source.
The answers to the resolution of poverty and scarcity are readily available to us, and they’d be resolved tomorrow if we remembered that we’re all one on this planet: We all share the same origins, and we all end up back in the same nonplace where we began. When we return to Spirit in our heart, our governments will align with this truth, and our leaders will emerge from in-Spirit consciousness.
We need to pray for the elimination of a perceived shortage and approach God in the style of Saint Francis with words that go something like, “Make me an instrument of Thy endless abundance,” rather than asking God to fulfill something that’s missing. In this way we can summon His energy back to us, rather than staying focused on what we don’t have. If we focus our thoughts on lack, we’ll only attract more of the same.
We need to start seeing ourselves as a vibrational match to the frequency of God’s abundance. If our desire is to attract wealth and prosperity, then we must entertain prosperous thoughts that match our desire and that activate the manifestation process. And the dormant forces of abundance will come to life to help fulfill these desires.
5. God Is Well-Being
Spirit never has a fever and knows nothing of illness, so in my humble opinion, it makes no sense to pray or engage in a discourse with God from a perspective of asking to be healed—unless, that is, we have a firm understanding of what we mean by the word heal. If we mean “to overcome an illness or infirmity,” then I feel that we’re again violating the truism that nothing can be what it isn’t, including God. As Ernest Holmes once wrote: “The will of God is always good,” which means to me that disease, sickness, and suffering are not part of God’s energy.
On the other hand, if we use the word heal to mean “reconnecting to our Source of Well-Being,” then we’re open to the potential of receiving assistance to overcome any infirmity. And that’s how I use the word. I never ask God to help me get over a feeling of sickness. Even when I had a minor heart attack five years ago, I asked to be made an instrument of God’s well-being. I acknowledged that my body had taken on non-well-being, be it from my lifestyle, diet, and habits; or the toxins I breathe in and out—whatever—it was not of God. It was of me in this physical world, and I prayed to be reunited to a stream of well-being. I knew that I was a piece of God, and that it was just as easy for Him to heal a cut on my
finger as it was to restore my heart to a healthy state. Since I knew that God’s healing power was within me, I just needed to help my body remember this.
Similarly, in a time of recent disharmony in my life, I found myself feeling sick to my stomach and unable to sleep—until I remembered that this experience was a gift to me. As I conversed with my Higher Power, I asked for guidance and visualized myself as a magnet, attracting plentiful well-being. And in this way, healing was virtually immediate.
In The Amazing Laws of Cosmic Mind Power, Joseph Murphy offers this magnificent advice on conversing with God when we’re seeking to be healed:
Know that God loves you and cares for you. As you pray this way, the fear gradually will fade away. If you pray about a heart condition, do not think of the organ as diseased, as this would not be spiritual thinking. To think of a damaged heart or high blood pressure tends to suggest more of what you already have. Cease dwelling on symptoms, organs, or any part of the body. Turn your mind to God and His love. Feel and know that there is only one healing presence and power. . . . Quietly and lovingly affirm that the uplifting, healing, strengthening power of the healing presence is flowing through you, making you every whit whole. Know and feel that the harmony, beauty, and life of God manifest themselves in you as strength, peace, vitality, wholeness, and right action. Get a clear realization of this, and the damaged heart or other diseased organ will be cured in the light of God’s love.
These words bear reading repeatedly . . . especially when you take into consideration that my damaged heart of five years ago is now completely healed.
Some Suggestions for Putting the Ideas in This Chapter to Work for You
— Before beginning any prayerful activity, make a note to keep in mind precisely what your Source is and is not. Ask yourself, “Am I asking God to be something that He is not? Am I expecting my Spiritual Creator to join me in my ego, which has truly edged God out?” This will allow you to stay focused on clearing the channel between you and Spirit, rather than putting out requests to a Source that can’t relate to your ego-driven world. Remember, it’s you who has left God, not the other way around.
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