The Black Eyed Peas: Where is the Love?

 

When We Get Past This . . .

There’s still so much that both science and religion don’t know, and I think it’s more honest to acknowledge this and say, “You know, we really don’t understand how this (or that) happened. Everything’s a theory at this point.” If any of us ever do stumble upon ‘the truth,’ it will probably be the physicists with a spiritual leaning. Even now, they’ve discovered we consist of vibrating atoms that are made up of mostly empty space. We’re not really ‘solids.’ Isn’t that cool? Is the empty space where our souls reside? I don’t know, but why not tell our children the truth and encourage them to (ad)venture forth and discover?

I think we’re spiritual beings with the potential for insight and connections so wonderful that the next hundred years of discoveries could boggle our minds–if we can plow through the current wave of darkness sweeping over us. It’s as if a heavy, dark boot is trying to smother our world, engendering fear and pressing the ‘heart’ out of us. We need to remember: It is only a boot. It is nothing compared to the Light and Love emanating from the heavens, inspiring the light-sparks in our souls.

When we get past this, we will look back and shake our heads, because we have mostly lived like animals, with ‘survival of the fittest’ our credo. In our future, I can see a planet where the hopes and dreams of a woman holding her sick child somewhere in Africa are as important to me as mine are. I mean, why am I more important than her? Why are you? Why should her child not have a safe environment, a decent home, clean water and good food to grow a healthy mind and body?

Maybe ‘survival of the fittest’ was a reaction to this darkness, but we’ve nearly destroyed our beautiful world in so living. Our future is ripe with possibility to transcend the mess we’ve made, to make the next evolutionary leap. We probably still won’t know everything (that would be boring, anyway), but maybe we’ll work out how to get along, how to create communities of loving environments, with family and friends and access to education, health care and meaningful work. Maybe our condition won’t be measured by our material wealth, but by our spiritual wealth.

Now, that’s a dream of the heart worth focusing on.

THRIVE: A Most Important Movie

Picture from the website, Thrive–the Movie, http://www.thrivemovement.com

I’ve just spent the last two hours, thirteen minutes and three seconds watching a free movie streaming online. Never have I taken such a journey from inspiration to despair (caused by overarching domination) to solutions, grounded in peace and harmony, for us and our world . I tell you there is no more important act you can make than to stop, sit and watch THRIVE, The Movie, at http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_movie with as many others as possible. It answers so many questions we humans have they’re too numerous to list here. Forward the link to the movie to your friends. Post it on social media sites. Send it in an email. Now is the time to stand up for our lives.

Where are the Fallen Angels?

This is an interesting paragraph from the book, Edgar Cayce on Angels, Archangels and the Unseen Forces by Robert J. Grant:

“There is a tendency to believe in the fallen angels or demons only when one hears of hauntings or in cases of exorcism. These manifestations are indeed rare and do not account for a large percentage of evil influences in the earth. Evil manifests in a variety of ways, just as virtue appears in countless forms. The important point is that evil or disharmony is a choice; the fallen are only in that state of existence when the choice is made to twist creative abilities into destructive ones. Where there is manipulation, oppression, war, famine, governmental control of religious belief, there exist the fallen ones.”

Grant goes on to say that God put into place a system in which the fallen will bring onto themselves the ultimate destruction. I have come to agree that God/Love will not force anyone into Heaven. There is no Light available to a soul who consciously uses God-given energy to create destruction, deciding, in essence, to compete with the God of Light.

Place for Him the Gift of Your Heart, A Guest Post from Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramahansa Yogananda in 1924

“Make your heart an altar of Christ-love — which lives in all races and loves them equally — so that you may love all people, seeing in their body-temples the dwelling place of omnipresent Christ… Exchange gifts as offerings to the Christ in all; and on the Christmas tree of your calm consciousness, richly decorated and glistening with divine soul qualities, place for him the gift of your heart.”– From The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You by Paramahansa Yogananda (Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, CA. All rights reserved).

Paramahansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, encourages us through his writings and talks to look beyond the material celebration of the holidays, to focus also on the spiritual celebration: our connection with the Divine, which resides within each one of us.

 

Honoring Christ from Our ‘Inner Temples’ A Guest Post from SRF

Paramahansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, encourages us through his writings and talks to look beyond the material celebration of the holidays, to focus also on the spiritual celebration: our connection with the Divine, which resides within each one of us.

The following quote by one of Paramahansa Yogananda’s foremost disciples, Sri Daya Mata, president and sanghamata of SRF from 1955 until her passing in 2010, is shared here with permission from SRF.

“Doesn’t almost everyone feel aglow with happiness at Christmas time? There is a deep spiritual reason. It isn’t just the pleasure of exchanging gifts and loving messages, and doing for others. [Paramahansa Yogananda] said that on the birthdays of great ones such as Jesus, there is tremendous rejoicing in heaven. Vibrations of that celestial joy permeate the atmosphere. Those who have open and loving hearts are stirred by it, and those who strive for deeper attunement through devotion and meditation fully participate in that sublime celebration. The degree to which we are in tune with heaven’s joyous recognition of Jesus’ birth depends upon the effort we make to commune with Christ — not just in the outward spiritual festivities in his honor, but in the inner temple of deep meditation.”

– Sri Daya Mata (fromSelf-Realization Magazine, Winter 2006; Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, CA. All rights reserved).

Meditation For Christmas Morn

It is a blessing to publish here a Christmas meditation from the enlightened spiritual leader, Paramahansa Yogananda, who was sent from India to America by his guru to share stories about our Loving Creator and the oneness of all spiritual consciousness. 

By Paramahansa Yogananda

The following excerpt is from Metaphysical Meditations by Paramahansa Yogananda. Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles. Reprinted with permission.

Paramahansa Yogananda in 1924, Photo Courtesy of Self Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles

Celebrate the birth of Christ in the cradle of your consciousness during the Christmas season. Let His vast perception in Nature, in space, and in universal love be felt within your heart.

Break the limitations of caste, color, race, religious prejudice, and inharmony, that the cradle of your heart be big enough to hold within you the Christ-love for all creation.

On every Christmas morn of your inner perception, prepare precious packages of divine qualities and deliver them to the beloved souls who gather around the Christmas tree of inner awakening to commemorate His birth in understanding, truth, and bliss.

Celebrating the birth of omniscient, omnipresent Christ Consciousness on the joyous Christmas festivity of your inner awakening, you will find the unbroken happiness of your dreams.

Let the omniscient Christ Consciousness come to earth a second time and be born in you, even as it was manifested in the consciousness of Jesus.

We Are the Answer, a Guest Post from Sharie, Spirit Teacher

Today, tomorrow and Christmas Eve I hope to share Christmas messages full of Love. “Tis the season when the world opens the door once more to the Spirit of Holy Days. Sharie (whose Native Indian name, if she had one, would be Blessing Woman) gave her permission to share this message from her blog, Sending Joy. It will inspire you for weeks to come–I promise. (I’m tuned into these things.) May you be blessed in this holiday season and forever and ever while we’re at it. Amen.

By Sharie, Spirit Teacher
Sending Joy

We are the awe we feel at a glorious sunset or a star filled night.  We are the beauty of a lovely garden, or a snow filled woods. Not the garden or the woods, but the beauty which is a feeling that lives inside us. We are the heart of a lovely song, the picture in the frame, the pinnacle of every fear-filled mountain we’ve ever had to climb. We are the joy in an unguarded moment when something passes over us that surpasses understanding.

We are the deep happiness we feel when we get it, even for an instant, that God is alive and well and no matter how it looks, all is right with the world. We are a holy instant when time stands still and space is limitless and we can see through the fear, the pain, the doubts, the darkness to a place of light and delight, and then, with great relief, feel all our burdens lifted from us. We are weightless.  We are ageless.  We are the kindness in a moment when we connect with someone unexpectedly and feel compassion and empathy. We are a gift to the world and the world is a gift to us. We are a blessing who can bless.  We are a savior who can save.  We are a healed healer. We are the answer to every question. The question to every answer. We are every lesson learned.

Where Does Peace Come From?

When I was young, I believed if enough of us marched for world peace, peace would happen—ha ha, right? Now I know it takes something more than marching or even thinking about peace. Peace is the natural state of our souls and between lives, we know this. We may have something like a vague recollection once reborn on Earth, but it’s very hard to give up our positions and our desires; peace pretty much always takes a back seat.

Peace begins within, the old saying goes. That means peace is so important to us, we’re willing to understand what ‘within’ means. We’re ready to know, where does peace come from? How is it implemented? We’re also willing to hear others’ needs because theirs are as important to us as our own.

In every situation, at least one person must be able to see the path to peace, to rise above finger-pointing and a desire for revenge. That’s a big one. It’s natural on Earth to want control and payback, but it’s not the natural state of our souls. Our souls love, forgive and serve.

So, I dedicate my Christmas peace collage to the beautiful man, the Prince of Peace, who was conceived through a miracle over two-thousand years ago, born to reconcile us with our Creator. How are we doing?

Surprise Communication

My daughter returned Wednesday night from a four-day spiritual retreat called Kairos, with other students from her Catholic high school. (Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment to say or do the right thing.) Neither parents nor students were given much information about the trip; all were asked to trust in the experience and the care of the adults in charge. Monday night, parents were invited to a short prayer service for the success of the retreat and seven or eight students who had previously attended called the retreat a life-changing experience in one way or another. It sounds magical, I thought. I wonder what happens there and if it will happen for Katie.

Tug of War

I settled, again, into a funk a while back, feeling old and cranky and lost. Posting for 365 days (from June 2009 through June 2010) kept me focused and more peaceful, though if you had read them all, you’d have seen where I sank into pride or judging others or wrote while in bad mood. Even so, feeling called to the computer to write for a spiritual purpose released inner joy and I felt connected to my higher-self. I generally meditated before writing but often had trouble quieting my ‘monkey mind’ to listen for Love. In spite of the difficulties, because of an inner push and commitment and sincerity, the healing words came–for me and perhaps for someone else who happened upon Notes Along the Path.

After the year, I stopped writing for a while and was surprised at how quickly I lost the awareness of joy. So, I gave myself permission to come back to the computer whenever I needed to. Ever since then, I’ve been writing here and there and, interestingly (to me anyway), on those focused, centered-in-my-heart days, I feel better, more like I can cope with all that’s going on. On the un-centered days, the funk sneaks up on me. Apparently writing about God = Love = Higher Self = Compassion is now necessary for me. Is it because I feel a primary obligation to meditate on those days? (I must also ask, after all these years of meditating, admittedly on and off, why don’t I meditate every day? I suspect it has, as always, to do with not wanting to see the ‘stuff’ that is exposed.)  

 The word ‘reconciliation’ came to me this morning. If you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll see definitions like:

1. The end of conflict or renewal of friendly relations;
2. The making of two or more apparently conflicting things compatible;
3. The sacrament of penance in the Catholic Church whereby a person’s sins are absolved through confession and penance.

I love the second one: ‘The making of two or more apparently conflicting things compatible.’ This one fits with my lower-self/higher-self tug of war and does give me hope. Eventually it will all be reconciled. I will give up self-pity and fall into the soft arms of God’s Love, made whole at last.

On Group Consciousness

What is group-consciousness? It is an awareness within each person of the other group members, and of the whole. It can be developed in well-run companies with an eye on more than the bottom line. It can be seen in churches and non-profit organizations where self-centered behavior is set aside, though this is not so easy to do. (If we observe our own thoughts for ten minutes, which is also much easier said than done, we soon realize we are each the center of our own universe.)

Why is awareness beyond our personal selves important? It is an antidote for the problems of our world. Alone, we add static to life. Together, we make peace in our world. It’s difficult enough within a marriage to set aside what we want long enough to hear what’s important to our partner—so how will we ever arrive at the understanding that people different from us are as valuable to the whole human race as we are?

It’s in the process of getting to know each other. Every person’s life, no matter his skin color, is an important story. All people, no matter their religions, hurt at times. Every person, regardless of her level of education, has dreams and hopes. Every person is loved unconditionally by our Creator.

What can we do about group-consciousness today? Banish fear and reach out and say hello and Happy Holidays. Smile. Help someone with something. Meet others and hear what they’re saying, in a class, a community center, even at a party. The more we listen, the more listening spreads, because listening affirms our value and once any of us realizes how truly valuable we are, it’s not long until we realize we’re all valuable.

A Powerful Knowing

My friend, Sharie, from Sending Joy, a WordPress blog, made a comment recently on my post, ‘A Simple Life in a New World.’ At her blog, Sharie teaches how to focus on Love and Light and leave all the rest behind. I’d like to share here her comment; the sentences in italics deeply touched me:

“Pam Dear, we need to believe in everything because all things are possible. The so-called miracles of this world, like your son’s magic tooth, are really nothing compared to the power of God that is working constantly in and through us in a place beyond this world. I would tell our brother who doesn’t believe in the power of visualization that he needs to have a little more faith … in himself. We can look and easily see all the destruction and the violence and scarcity and pain and suffering here. Those things are easy to see because they make a lot of noise and are very distracting. And they’re in the news a lot, presented in the most dramatic way possible.

But the peace and joy and capacity for true healing that lives within us is very quiet and so we don’t always remember to look for it. We just need to pay a little more attention to the real miracles and less attention to the chaos. It’s all in where we choose to focus our minds. On the flowers—or the weeds. On the destruction—or on the love that arises from it. Thank you for all your thought provoking posts. Love you, Sharie”

“The so-called miracles of this world, like your son’s magic tooth, are really nothing compared to the power of God that is working constantly in and through us in a place beyond this world.” Powerful words, powerful knowing. Sharie and I both started our blogs in June, 2009, and soon found each other. I write about my spiritual journey with mostly personal reflections. Sharie is like a ship, strong and sure, riding waves of Light from the Love-place beyond this world, the place her heart-mind is ever focused. I hope you’ll stop by her blog, http://sendingjoy.wordpress.com, especially when you’re feeling fearful or overwhelmed. Every time Sharie posts, she uses different words to assure us our chaotic world is not the real world, and all we need do to experience love and healing is turn our eyes toward the Light and say, “I see you, Lord of Love. I am here.”

On a personal note, we’re having our family Thanksgiving dinner this weekend because this is when we can all be together. Both my sons will be here from out of town and I am so happy! My brother’s daughter and her children were here last weekend for a reconciliation that happened. I’m taking a moment to express my gratitude for a loving family that had quite a way to go, and made the journey, is making the journey, with the grace of Love.

Before Us Stand Two Portals, A Guest Post by Michael Brine

By Michael Brine
wild.brine621@gmail.com

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no person could have dreamed would have come their way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!”                                           Goethe

Humanity has moved into a critical time period. Before us stand two portals. We have a choice. One is to repeat the mindset of the past several thousand years, and thus keep digging an ever deepening grave – OR – to embark on a new and exciting adventure into as yet, largely unchartered waters. The choice is ours – as a species – as individuals.

The past is laid out before us, to this moment in time, to reflect on with all its horrors and tragedies – a past in which we have given our power away to those who would take it for their own misguided motives and behaviour. In our blindness we have sadly contributed to it, in most cases out of ignorance. We have blindly followed the cultural conditioning we have been raised in, as were our parents and their parents, back into the mists of darker times. Ignorance breeds ignorance.  

I have heard a wise teacher suggest that our misguided behaviours will keep repeating until the ‘penny’ drops and we raise up from the dead and see a new but distant Light beckoning to us—and until we find the courage to walk forward and accept it as real. As we begin to bathe in this Light’s enfolding embrace, as we link our hands with others who have also heard the ‘Call,’ and have removed the blindfolds from the deadness of our fear – the fears will no longer control us!

“Out, out brief candle – life is but a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage – and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”  Shakespeare

Sir Francis Bacon, actually, wrote those words about five hundred years ago. Has anything changed? Must we wait until we remove this ‘mortal coil’? Or can we wake up now and see the graveyards we have allowed to be dug in our combined pasts and have the courage to say, “Enough!”  We deserve better – and certainly our children do.If all of us joined hands and reflected on the world we would like to live in, maybe we could make it happen.

No – NO! No ‘what ifs’! Visualize it! Let go of that controlling emotion called fear. We deserve better, but only we can make it happen. The road of Love is the strongest and surest road to walk on. We don’t need to compete with each other for our existence. We need to see and appreciate that by working in concert and not competing, by sharing our efforts as in a very real community of people, we can leave the darkness of the past and begin to dance and sing as we wake up in a new world of our combined creation. This can be a global effort. Let not “lines on a map” divide us. There are many already around the world working in and with different organizations who have the vision. If more and more embrace this vision then the magical tipping point will be reached and it WILL happen!

When it does, it will be the biggest “WOW” we have ever experienced. SO – Let the Dance begin! A dance in which men and women will join hands as equals. Dance, dance, dance the night away and throw our cares to the wind – embracing the dawning of this, OUR New Day.

It WILL happen. It MUST happen, or we will sink into a bottomless grave of our own making. If that should happen there will be a sickening silence across the land – the candle snuffed and life as we know it will disappear into the thickening shadows extending into an endless night – a night we will have largely created by allowing ourselves to be controlled by negative forces – forces that have been controlling us throughout this past age of darkness through fear. Rulers have done it – religions have done it. God – that creative force of the Universe – is Love. This Love has no judgments used to control us – IT simply IS! So be it.

You may be interested in participating in the Global Intention Experiment planned by the New Reality Transmission www.newrealitytransmission.com/ organization, “a fulltime international team of physicists and mathematicians…where consciousness interacts with geometry at the quantum scale to create everything that we define as reality. On 11-11, 2010, one million people across the globe will mentally project a unified vision of a new paradigm for our species… a new reality. The very real physics that connects human consciousness with molecular structure will be harnessed en masse during the largest scale simultaneous manifestation transmission in recorded history.”

Other articles by Michael Brine can be accessed at < www.missionignition.net/btb>
E-mail address < wild.brine621@gmail.com>

Equally Outraged, A Guest Post by Sven Eberlein

By Sven Eberlein
http://svenworld.wordpress.com/

Well said yesterday, Pam. As FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” We’re all our sisters’ and brothers keepers, and anyone who says that they’ve earned everything they have all by themselves is living a complete fantasy. I think that a lot of people who are in the Tea Party movement have legitimate gripes, but it’s misdirected. It’s the big greedy banks, corporations and their political tools in the Republican Party who ravaged this country during eight years of Bush/Cheney deregulations, cronyism and wars of choice that have wrecked this country.

You should really ask your brother why he didn’t speak up when BushCo ran up the biggest deficit in history, legalized torture and cut taxes for the richest of the rich. Where was the Tea Party when our sons and daughters died in Iraq, one of the biggest and most expensive misadventures ever undertaken by a U.S. Government. Where were they when Bush Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson bailed out his former employer with our tax money?

You see, I understand the anger, but it’s utterly disingenuous to direct all that outrage at President Obama and his administration who’ve had to spend the last 20 months trying to clean up the incredible mess left behind by the robber barons of the Bush administration.

For all the hyperventilating shouts of socialism I would tell Tea Partiers to take a trip to some of the social democracies in Western Europe and see how well off regular middle class folks are over there, not just a few rich people. Having basic needs like health care or education taken care of prevents so much unnecessary suffering and in fact makes people so much more productive. I could go on and on.

Anyway, I love the U.S. and so much of its great spirit and creativity, but I’m just puzzled sometimes at how shortsighted, and frankly, ignorant, people can be here. I guess we all create our own realities, and you certainly have a right to believe whatever you want. The freedom of religion certainly applies to political philosophy as well, and it’s part of what makes this country great that people can believe whatever they want. But you cannot make up your own facts and expect us to just swallow it. Your brother’s favorite Tea Party candidate wants to deport all illegal aliens, but is your brother willing to pay double and triple for his food when there’s no more cheap labor to do the backbreaking farm work that no American is willing to do anymore? What does it say about us as human beings when we’re deporting children who were raised and have gone to school in this country to places they’ve never set foot in and have no relatives or families to come back to?

Again, I understand the outrage, but I don’t buy what the Tea Party is selling. It’s confused. It’s simplistic. And worst of all, it’s heartless. I prefer channeling my frustration with the political system into doing constructive work and helping to build this country and each other up rather than screaming and complaining. I for one think Barack Obama has done an amazing job considering the incessant and almost irrational opposition he has faced from people and politicians who want nothing but to tear him apart. As Albert Einstein once said: “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

Sorry for this rant, but sometimes we just have to speak our minds.