February | 2014 | Religion4All

Archive for February, 2014

The Law of Magic

February 26, 2014 at 4:58 pm · Filed under Spirituality

My words for meditation today:

“I will tell you one of the deepest laws of life. You may not have thought about it at all. You have heard — the whole of science depends on it — that cause and effect is the base. You create the cause and the effect follows. Life is a causal link. You put the seed in the soil and it will sprout. If the cause is there, then the tree will follow. The fire is there: you put your hand in it and it will burn. The cause is there and the effect will follow. You take poison and you will die. You arrange for the cause and then the effect follows.

This is one of the most basic scientific laws, that cause and effect is the innermost link of all processes of life. Religion knows about a second law which is still deeper…

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Kitty Has Claws

February 25, 2014 at 3:05 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen

I had a childhood flashback today, during my meditation, of a time when I was very young … perhaps even a toddler. One of our cats had been cut open along one of its hind legs … I remember seeing the muscles, and the bone, and the blood. I loved that cat. I was crying and I wanted to go hold it, to comfort it. My mom wouldn’t let me go though; she held onto me tightly as I strained my arms out to reach my animal friend.

My mother knew that going near a wounded animal, much less trying to comfort it, was extremely dangerous! Had she not been there and my little toddler self had run to pick up my cat and comfort it? That former animal friend would have turned into an explosion of fur, claws, and teeth. Truthfully, as a toddler, I could have literally been killed if certain arteries were severed.

What I couldn’t understand then I can metaphorically see in my life today, as well as in the lives of those around me. We all have been wounded in some way or another … some can say they were wounded by death, some by disease, some by accident, some heartbreak, and others by malevolent intent. These wounds are tender … so sensitive that we guard them vigilantly … we don’t want anyone getting close to them. If someone who loved us, and even truly wanted the best for us … tried to simply tangibly love us and come to hold us, comfort us, caress the pain of that wound out of our system? We would have a knee jerk reaction to push them away … we can’t even help it … it’s just SO sensitive that even though we know we love that person? We still push them away.

God has shown me something over the past few weeks though. Sometimes … God WANTS to heal us through other people. We can do all the meditation we want. We can creatively expunge every demon through art. We can strive to be as popular as possible to act as a salve to that wound. We can run. We can hide … but unless we are willing to be open to what God wants? That wound will not be healed … not ever.

Sometimes God will just heal something, it’s true. God has healed MANY things within me, so I can certainly attest to that. However, there comes a point where God looks at us like that cat of mine that was cut open … God knows that we will resist if healing were forced on us. We have to be willing … we have to be able to still our knee jerk reaction … and swallow our pride, or angry retorts, or defensive posturing … and allow that wound to be treated, and healed … and sometimes God uses other people to do this … and we just have to trust them.

That’s very hard for some of us; to let ourselves go and expose our souls in such a way … but we have to do it anyway if we want to be healed.

If there is someone like this in your life … someone who loves you so ridiculously that they want to help you? Don’t push them away; be grateful for them. Calm those nerves, retract the proverbial claws, breathe in the love of the Universe … and breathe out your love for them … and let the healing balm of their love go to work at healing your painful wounds.

You might be very surprised at the outcome … often we want what is worst for us … and what is best for us is avoided, because of our own hyper-sensitivity to tender areas. It takes conscious work to overcome this … but it is SO very worth it. 🙂

Peace and Love.

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– I am currently going back through older posts to re-learn the amazing spiritual lessons that have so changed my life.

Pic from Petside.com

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!

There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.

By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Southern California, Northern California,Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach

Kitty Has Claws.

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“Someone Like You” – Adele

February 22, 2014 at 9:45 am · Filed under Christianity, Creativity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Music, Philosophy, Religion, Singer, Songs, Spirituality, Zen

The latest in my meditative take on current songs. Sometimes I get hooked on an album, and the latest one has been Adele’s “21”. When I first started listening to it I looked at it as an opportunity to work through any unresolved pain from loves lost, or trials in my life. Her singing is so evocative; filled with pure, raw emotions.

What I found happening, unexpectedly and totally unplanned, was that the songs took on a new meaning … during an especially emotional session of meditation these songs came to me as if God was singing them to me (instead of me singing them to my own love’s lost). It took my breath away to think that God could actually love me THAT much … but, of course, God does! God is the inventor of love, God IS LOVE. Of course God loves each and every one of us that much.

Ever since then, I have been hooked on listening to this album (even moreso) but instead of feelings sadness or angst … I have amazing bursts of joyful bliss just to know that God aches and yearns to be with me every second.

In this particular song … I was struck at how it must feel to God to pour unlimited love into our lives … and have us just turn our backs on that love. Like God is in this quest to just find that ultimate Love returned … and each time I turn my back it is like the worst rejections I have experienced in my life (but more!). That one smarted a bit … but it is an interesting and unique perspective on our relationship with our Creator, I think.

“Someone Like You” – Adele

I heard that you’re settled down
That you found a girl and you’re married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn’t give to you.

Old friend, why are you so shy?
Ain’t like you to hold back or hide from the light.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
That for me it isn’t over.

Never mind, I’ll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don’t forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead, “
Yeah

You know how the time flies
Only yesterday was the time of our lives
We were born and raised
In a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I’d hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
That for me it isn’t over.

Nothing compares
No worries or cares
Regrets and mistakes
They are memories made.
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Never mind, I’ll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you
Don’t forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.”

——-

I am currently going back through my many prior posts to re-learn the lessons God has taught me.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

“Someone Like You” – Adele.

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There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

February 20, 2014 at 2:06 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Collier, Stephen Richards, What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives, You are a child of God, Your playing small does not serve the world

My words to meditate on for the day:

“If you knew the power within yourself to be truly happy, to be truly whole, then you would never ask another to become the image you desire for yourself, in order to be happy and whole.”

– Stephen Richards

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“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.”

– Robert Collier

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“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure about you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

– Nelson Rockefeller

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pic from “The Incredible Shrinking Man“.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking.

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What Defines You?

February 17, 2014 at 11:16 am · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, Zen

What exactly is it that defines you? Is it your family, or your nationality? Your career, or your dreams? What is that one, specific thing that defines you as a person … completely?

This is what I found myself meditating on today (from my prior post, “Forget the Pose“). Early on in my life, as I suppose would be the case for most people, it was my family. When you are a child, what else is there that could possibly define you more than that?

When family was taken away from me, in my teenage years, I was adrift in the vacuous void of aimless depression … so I suppose that depression defined me. In my twenties it became self-liberation and my dreams … going after the things I was passionate about, and letting nothing stand in my way.

Over time what I have chosen to define me has changed several times: a couple of times it became people I fell in love with, another time it became avoiding rejection at all costs, and at one point it was religion as well.

Here’s the thing though … ALL of those phases I described are exactly that … PHASES! They don’t define me any more than a Magnolia flower defines the tree. I made the decision to make them define me though … I wanted to be in control, because being OUT of control was way too scary a thing for me.

Now, I am at a new place … God defines me. The old things keep clawing at my mind to find their way into control … but I don’t even have to fight them any more. Once they get in? They come face to face with a Loving and Living God within me who has lit my Soul on fire … nothing else can take up residence in that place any longer.

Of course, that takes a certain amount of work as well. It’s not enough to just say that God defines you … you have to put in the work to make that reality. For me that means spending at least an hour or two with God each day. It was work for a while … now I find that I am loathe to leave God’s presence. Today was like that … an hour went by, and I automatically thought, “Okay, time to get up and go about my day.” Then I simply decided to just stay there … and spend some more time connecting with God … soaking in that Divine presence and Love.

So, yeah … there still are things that try to wrest control away … home life, love, the future and all the vagueness that entails. My mind struggles to try and DEFINE something, so that I can be in control. It’s like I needed all of those things, or people, to be there to take care of me in some way … so that I could be good enough … because it is clear that I obviously have been thinking that I am not good enough, or worthy enough.

God told me this today, “YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH.”

THAT is something to define me … that with God at the center of my being: I am good enough … all things are possible with Love ablaze in your heart. I can let go … there is no need to fight, or cling, or push … just let go, and BE … whoever, and wherever, and whatever it is that God guides me to be.

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I am currently going through my many posts to re-learn some of the lessons that have so changed my life in these past few years. These now are my posts to meditate upon and learn again anew. Peace and Love.

~~~~~~~

Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach

What Defines You?.

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A Perfect Paradox

February 16, 2014 at 12:22 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: being a conduit for Love, Divine Relationship, Knowing God, Love, reconciling inner differences

“I am already perfect … I need do nothing to become perfect … it is only my actions that are imperfect.”

That is a very different mantra than what I grew up with! For those who do not know, I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian missionary family. There were good sides and bad sides to this, as there is to all things … Dualiity. The wonderful side is that this upbringing is what introduced me to the concept of having a literal relationship with God … it doesn’t get any better than that! One of the many down sides is that I was imprinted with certain mindsets which I have now come to see are false … not only are they false, but they are harmful.

The specific mindset I am referencing here is the mindset that “We all are born sinners!” … horrible, awful sinners who must bemoan their woeful state and flagellate themselves constantly with the lashes of shame and penitence.

This is false.

We all truly are beautiful creations … at our core we are the unique, sparkling beauty of a soul that God created us to be. We have LEARNED to do evil things … but we are not evil at our core. We have taken upon ourselves the structures of the world around us: how we were raised, who we find to love, where we go for acceptance and validation, what we choose to believe, who we choose to follow, and the list goes on. These all are the structures we have built upon the fabric and foundation of our souls … and we will do ANYTHING to maintain the solidity and surety of those structures … even if it means doing things that are harmful to others.

It is in letting these structures dissolve we find the freedom to become the perfect and beautiful creatures that we were created to be. The more we adhere to these structures, the more we keep that perfect creation buried deep, SO DEEP, within the sealed up wells of our inner psyche. We do this thinking that we are protecting ourselves … if that True Self gets hurt it can be devastating. So we submerge it, and hide it, we bury it, and bind it … so that we won’t be hurt in such a way again.

In doing so, however, we are denying the perfection that already IS. We already ARE perfection … the perfection that God created us to be. It is only our ACTIONS that are imperfect … and those actions are based on what we have learned, taken on, or been brainwashed to believe.

Will my actions ever be perfect? No, probably not. That still doesn’t mean that I am a horrible, awful person at my core … and neither are you.

When you were born and those innocent newborn eyes looked out into the world … do you really believe you were evil?? No … you were perfect … and you still are perfect … your actions simply do not reflect that perfection. You have lost touch with the perfection that IS the LOVE of God. Love that is there for all of us, and LIVES in all of us already. All we can do is strive to reflect that Perfection into the world around us … strive to embrace the fact that we are all beings with Duality and to embody the perfect Love that is already there at our core.

Doing this means LETTING GO of the structures that are learned or imposed … not clinging to them more desperately.

THAT is a HUGE difference … at least for me.

You are perfect … JUST AS YOU ARE. God loves you … JUST AS YOU ARE.

Peace and Love.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

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A Perfect Paradox.

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Change Effects Change

February 15, 2014 at 9:57 am · Filed under Christianity, Creativity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality

Change effects Change … as in exterior events (change) cause you to make decisions in your life, thus change that is effected. We CONTROL our own change … we cannot control the exterior events, but we CAN control our own actions … how we react to that change.

I can look back over my life in the past few years and really witness this in great detail. There was a long period of my life where I basically reacted to exterior events bringing change into my life in a smattering of peripheral ways … topical treatments to either soothe momentarily, or make me forget until the next bout of change came along. Alcohol, sometimes drugs, relationships, sometimes not relationships but just simply sex, work, poetry, art, singing, writing, composing, the list goes on a bit longer. Some of these things were positive in ways, and others were VERY negative. The point is that I was using them in reaction to the exterior change happening in my life; things that were out of my control … as a way to make me feel as if I was IN control. When, in fact, I was not in control at all … it’s all a grand charade of fooling ourselves.

This all changed for me a few years ago. I still was using these tactics to make me feel as if I was in control … but they just weren’t working like they had before. I could either engage in them to a larger extreme (which is a rather frightening thought), or I could find new coping mechanisms … OR I could do what I did: meditate … connect with God.

I had been meditating all along, but only very sporadically … when I really NEEDED it … so, like, once or twice a month.

Something happened though … I began to see that the change I created in myself through meditation … through connecting with God to resolve the internal problems brought about by exterior change in my life … began to be the only way that I could get truly meaningful change to occur in my life at large. Change within me that made me happy. Change underneath all the masks I had acquired that made me start throwing the masks away.

The more I meditated, the more free I became of all these devices I had been using to “protect” myself … that were really harming me more. I allowed the exterior changes in my life to start knocking down the walls and inner blocks I had created … I accepted the change, and instead of running from it I went within and just meditated … to work through what was brought up by those external changes that were out of my control. I opened myself up … I exhumed all of the crap that had accumulated by dumping topical treatments on top of unresolved inner issues.

Now here I am a few years later … after I enacted those changes in my life toward how I dealt or coped with change … and my life looks completely different. I am happy. I feel free … and the things that seemed like distant dreams or aspirations are beginning to take form and blossom. If I had stayed on the path I was on … well, I would be in a VERY different place. I am fairly certain that it would not be a happy place … my coping mechanisms had never brought this kind of happiness before. It was only momentary; fleeting … this is solid and permanent; a way of life.

So, in essence, I changed my tactics … I changed my reactions to the external changes I could not control. We all have this ability … we can let go, or we can cling for dear life. We can open our hearts, which feels vulnerable, or we can keep that portal slammed shut. We can connect to our Maker at ANY time, to deal with ANY problem … we CAN do that … or we can throw topical treatments at things until your simply drowning in your own swamp of unresolved issues.

It’s up to you though … YOU HAVE THAT POWER.

Peace and Love.

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pic from the movie xXx. I am going through old posts and reliving/learning from them anew. This post was originally posted here Change Effects Change.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status,lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Comments

Every Inch, But One

February 11, 2014 at 11:01 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Alan Moore; "V for Vendetta", Carl Jung, Rainer Maria Rilke

My words for meditation today:

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke

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“I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you.”

– Alan Moore; “V for Vendetta”

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“Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.”

– Carl Jung

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pic from The Guardian

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Every Inch, But One.

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The Green Man Knows

February 7, 2014 at 9:02 am · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: being aware, Enlightenment, Spirituality, Star Wars, Yoda

* shared from Paolo Coelho’s blog

“Do or do not… there is no try.”

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

“War does not make one great.”

“Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.”

“That is why you fail. (in response to Luke saying, “I don’t believe it.”).”

“Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.”

“If so powerful you are, why leave?”

“Clear, your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind the plot.”

“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

“You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock… everywhere! Even between the land and the ship.”
“To the Force, look for guidance. Accept what fate has placed before us.”

“May the Force be with you.”

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Comments

The Growing and The Flowering

February 6, 2014 at 10:37 am · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: allowing God to lead you, being patient, change, Divine Guidance, following intuition, growth, waiting on God

A flower cannot bloom before its time. If it were even possible for humans to impose their will upon a plant to flower, the plant simply would not be able to … its constitution and make-up at that specific time could not fashion the flower petals inside of a bud that has yet to be born. One would have to accelerate the evolution of that plant a thousand times faster than its normal growth rate … what then would that do to the plant?

In the same way, we as people are designed to flower and flourish. However, each of us also needs our own period of gestation and hibernation and growth. Those who are growing should not look at those who are flowering with envy … your time will come. Those who are flowering should not look at those who are growing with disdain or judgment … your flowers will die and then you too will be growing again.

This is one of the greatest difficulties presented to religions in this day and age. The flowering are looked at, by the religious institution, as affirmation that their teaching is correct. The growing are looked at as people who have yet to flower … if only they would heed the religious teachings better – then they too could flower. This drives the growing ones away, and sets the flowering up for the failure of a future downfall when they too will be growing.

Every … single … person … needs the nourishment of Love. It does not come as a reward for heeding teachings … it should simply be … all the time and beyond conditions. It might take twenty years for one to flower … but God ‘s timing is beyond our comprehension. Perhaps their flower will be the most beautiful of all … and all they needed was time, and unconditional Love.

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I currently am going through the many posts from the past couple of years to learn more from those insights, and to further establish the lessons in my life. Peace and Love.

~~~~~~~

Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

via The Growing and The Flowering.

Comments

Live in the Light of Day

February 5, 2014 at 8:10 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen

I had a vision during my meditation time today: the word “LIES” had been tattooed to my forehead, and was in the process of being surgically removed. It really was not a pretty picture to have emblazoned upon the screen of my mind. As I thought about it some more though, I realized that it was actually a pretty apt metaphor.

Lies become such a permanent part of our lives, when we undertake them. They are like some sort of organism that keeps expanding and growing, until they almost seem to have a life of their own. If you live with lies for a long time, they seem impossible to overcome, or extricate yourself from. To do so would mean that you would have to literally change EVERYTHING in your life.

Ultimately though, that is for the best. A lie, just like anything else that is negative or part of the darkness, is a device that forces your heart to shut down. You cannot tell a lie and keep your heart open … you can only become a good enough actor or actress so that others can’t tell that you have closed your heart when you tell it. Just because nobody else can tell that you’re lying, doesn’t mean that your heart is open.

For a while, there have been old structures that keep clanging heads with the spiritual transformation that has become the phenomenon of my life. I tried to ignore them, or even preserve them, for quite a while … simply because to see them shatter would mean a good deal of pain for people I love, as well as pain for myself. Ultimately though, I have had to face the proverbial music … to live two very different lives is too much for anyone to perpetuate. Eventually one has to choose … either to go back to the way you were, or to bring the outer world into alignment with your inner world.

That’s why the vision I had is such an appropriate portrait for this … it IS painful, but it is so very necessary if you are to have an open heart … a deep, and profound connection to your Creator. Living with lies is no different than living with bitterness, or anger, or an unforgiving mentality … they all are a part of the darkness that spiritually blinds us. The only way to be free is to expose them to the Light … sometimes you simply have to face the consequences in order to live in the Light of Day.

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Going through some old posts and finding hidden gems to learn from all over again :-).

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This post was the result of meditating on my prior post, “Governance of a Warrior“.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

via Live in the Light of Day.

Comments

A Way to Live Life

February 3, 2014 at 8:49 am · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Divine Connection, following your intuition, Love Your Body, Love Yourself, Open Heart. Connection to God, Relationship with God, Silencing Your Negative Inner Voice

Going back through some of my older writings … this one struck a cord! 😉 Peace and Love.

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In my meditations today (on my prior post, “Ultimately Rich“) I came to dwell on the thought that there are three elements to being used by God creatively … or more distinctly, for our creativity to be used Miraculously.

First: we must know God. We must have a relationship with God that is so deep that it surpasses anything else in our lives. This is accomplished through prayer, meditation and having an open heart at all times. When you can always be open, connected to and guided by your Creator … the impossible is possible.

Secondly: we must love ourselves. We must act as a mirror for the depth of love that God has for us … to ourselves. This requires diligence and discipline; to overcome the negative Inner Mind. Some of us have SUCH loathing that has been instilled in our mind … for ourselves! It is a great crime of society at large … and truthfully one of the main reasons I felt led to start this blog … so that EVERYONE can know God’s love. YOU are loved by God … just as you are. If God can unconditionally love and forgive you, after all of the pain and rejection God has received from you over the course of your life, surely you can love and forgive yourself!

Thirdly: we must love ourselves in the physical sense. We must treat our body as a temple; the domicile of our greatest Love … God.

All three of these elements interact with each other. If you don’t love your body then that feeds your own negative Inner Voice, which then causes you to shut down your heart and become disconnected from God. If you don’t love yourself, then you will abuse your body in an effort to distract yourself from that self-loathing. If you don’t know God … well then, you have made the decision to never know the only Being who will EVER know you and love you for exactly who you are … the only being who will every give you Unconditional Love.

Most of us have at least one of these aspects working for us: a Relationship with God, Inner Love for Yourself, or Love for your Body/Temple. For the unfortunates who do not have ANY of these things in life … we must show great care, compassion, and love … misery is their constant companion.

For myself, for a long time, I only had one … that was my relationship with God. I have had that from the time I was a small child, and I have adamantly clung to that no matter what. However, for a very long time I did not Love myself … either internally, or externally. So while God could use me to some extent, because the one element (being that Divine relationship) was present, I could never be used by God to my true and full potential.

Presently, I would say that I have the first and second aspects of this Creative Triumvirate in place … and I am working on loving myself in the physical sense. By this I mean eating the proper foods, not drinking alcohol in excess, or really any of the other legal drugs available to us (caffeine, etc.). Notice I say “in excess” … Jesus was known to drink wine, so I am not saying that we should live life as an ascetic. Only that things that are done to excess … deprive us of our connection to God. All of these things, when done in excess affect our mental and emotional well being. Think about it … if you have a hangover, do you really think you will be able to maintain an open-hearted connection with God the next day? I’ve certainly tried … and it is very difficult.

They all work together though … now that I have a constant open-hearted relationship with God, and have learned how to love myself … I see all of the ways in the past that I truly have been abusing this “temple” where God and I live together. So now that prompts me to change them … to move on into the next progression.

When all THREE of these principles are in place in your life … THEN is when God will truly be able to use you to accomplish miraculous things; not only in your life, but in the world around you.

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* Art by zendotstudio

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

A Way to Live Life.

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Prison of a Shell

February 2, 2014 at 12:45 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen

We carry around with us these giant structures … each of us comes with our own conceptual carapace of beliefs, habits, and histories. Not all of these things are positive either. For instance, if you begin a deception you then continue to carry that deception with you … eventually it affects every aspect of your life. This construct you have created starts to become a bothersome burden, but you continue to haul it around, and even add to it, just so that you won’t have to have had all that energy gone wasted … just so that you won’t have to CHANGE.

There comes a time though where we must decide whether we are going to live our lives in resignation, beaten down by the weight of what we have amassed, or whether we will let go of this burden … allow it to fall away, and shatter into a thousand shards of what it all really was … NOTHING.

When you have been Awakened, there really are only two choices:

a) Remain Awakened and be committed to that; no matter what the cost (which means your constructs must be shattered, no matter how painful it may be to experience).

– or –

b) Switch off that light of Enlightenment and resign yourself to true misery … the misery of knowing what life is all about, and that you have chosen to turn your back on it.

That’s it … there are no other options … it comes down to those two, distinct choices. You choose the former, and enjoy an open-hearted connection with your Creator that will see you through every difficulty and trial … or you choose the latter, and hope that those awful trials will pass you by because you are hiding in the shadows instead of living out in the Light.

It means, of course, that you may have to leave behind everything you have and everyone you know (potentially). It doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be such a drastic outcome, but the potential is there and we must acknowledge such possibilities. You can quite literally possess NOTHING and yet have everything, simply because you are Open and connected to God … or you can horde everything you’ve amassed and remain imprisoned by your gigantic, hollow prison of a shell.

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This post is the result of a meditation on my prior post, “The Breaking of the Shell“.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Prison of a Shell.

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Religion4All

Archive for February, 2014

The Law of Magic

Kitty Has Claws

“Someone Like You” – Adele

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

What Defines You?

A Perfect Paradox

Change Effects Change

Every Inch, But One

The Green Man Knows

The Growing and The Flowering

Live in the Light of Day

A Way to Live Life

Prison of a Shell

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