Get Your Bearings

"I used to travel on business so much that some days I would wake up and not know where I was or what I was supposed to be doing,” a friend told me. “I became so disoriented that every night before I went to sleep, I would paste Post-its on the hotel TV screen, telling me what city I was in, and who I was supposed to see, when, and why."

We are all like voyagers in a distant city. We came from the world of Spirit to a world that has lost sight of its origin and purpose. It is easy to become distracted by fears and illusions and to forget who we are and why we came.

We must take care to remind ourselves often about our identity and purpose. Prayer, meditation, spiritual study, and uplifting fellowship are like Post-its we can paste on the screen of our consciousness to help us stay on our spiritual track. If you do not surround yourself with reminders of your spiritual nature, the world will teach you that you belong to it, and you will feel lost and alone.

Keep the high watch. Put up inspiring pictures and quotes in your home and office. Listen to music that nourishes your soul. Go to restaurants, movies, and social gatherings that honor the presence of God.

Choose friends who uphold you on your spiritual path. Get regular massage, counseling, or training by persons attuned to higher laws.

It is within your power to build your life on the values you choose, but you must take an active role in staying awake. Step back often, take deep breaths, and check in with your spirit. Any investment you make in your spiritual growth will bless you many times over.

The Whale...

If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read  about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down  by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A  fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands, and radioed an environmental group for help. 

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and  determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them,  pushed them gently around as she was thanking them.

Some said it was  the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
  
May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.
 
I pass this on to you, my  friends, in the same spirit.
 
It's a good  life!  

The Answer Is You

I have good news and I have bad news:

The bad news is that we have lost the key to the door
behind which the secret of life is hidden.

The good news is that it was never locked.

— Swami Beyondananda

As the story goes... when human beings appeared on the planet, a group of gods got together and decided to play a game. “Let’s hide the secret of life!” one suggested.

“Great idea! ” another agreed. “Where shall we hide it?”

“Let’s plant it at the top of the highest mountain,” one proposed.

“No,” responded another, “people will even climb to Mount Everest.”

“How about at the bottom of the ocean?” asked another.

“No, they will invent submarines.”

On and on the gods pondered, trying to find a suitable hiding place. Finally, one god had a bright idea: “I know!” he exclaimed. “Let’s hide the secret of life inside each person, they’ll never think to look there!”

We remain in darkness when we seek external solutions for internal needs. We believe our problems exist because of causes outside ourselves, and then seek to rearrange the outer world. Even when we succeed, we feel empty because the external situation was not the cause of our pain. To truly be healed we must deal with our experience at its source; our own beliefs, attitudes, and actions.

In their important book, Conscious Loving, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks put forth the core principle that each partner must take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens in their relationship and their world.

Empower yourself by identifying yourself not as a victim of circumstances, but as the source of your experience.

The whole game changes when you realize the answer is within you.

Building a Sidewalk That Flows

Shift your sail with the wind. ~ Italian proverb

A friend told me of a time when she attended a conference at a Toronto University, she so enjoyed walking through a huge grassy mall between the buildings. The area was landscaped beautifully, and the sidewalks were laid out in an interesting, irregular pattern.

When she had commented on this to her friend, he told her, “The sidewalks were designed by the people who walked on them. When the mall first opened, the architects did not designate sidewalks; instead they waited for a few weeks to see where students walked. After the engineers determined the footpath patterns, they laid down the sidewalks. They realized that no matter where they put the sidewalks, people would walk where they wanted and just trample the grass. So they decided to save themselves some work and make it easier for the pedestrians.”

The sidewalk designers understood that there is a flow to life, and when we are one with it, we are empowered. When we tune into the energy flow, we can use it to our advantage, rather than struggling to make the world fit into our expectations. The ancient Tao Te Ching, recorded by Lao Tse, is a magnificent poetic instruction book on how to be strengthened by changes.

Jungle lore tells that monkeys learned how to evade capture by making use of ease rather than force. Hunters would put some nuts in a glass jar with a rim smaller than its base. A monkey of inferior intelligence would reach into the jar and grab the nuts, but because the hand with nuts in it was too large to fit back through the rim, the animal would stand there struggling, and the hunter would grab him. The smarter monkeys, however, didn’t reach into the jar; they simply opened one palm and tilted the jar so the nuts fell into it.

If you are trying to clutch onto something that won’t fit into your life naturally, that’s when you get caught.

Accept what shows up, and you are free. Take advantage of the tide of events, and life will support you in ways that you could not manipulate through anxious struggle.

Build on what is, rather than what isn’t, and you will be one with life.

At Faith Value

Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.

~ Hebrews 11:1

“Hurry up, or we’ll miss the bus!” shouted Paul. The streets of New York City became a blur as Paul, Tom and John jogged toward the bus terminal. Two blocks in five minutes? was it possible?

“You guys go up and catch the bus, and I’ll get the tickets,” offered Tom. They ran up the long escalator, brushing past less anxious passengers. At the top of the ramp, they saw the bus closing its doors. Running full speed, they reached the bus just as it was pulling out of its parking space. They pounded on the door, and the driver let them in. “Can you wait for our friend?” Paul implored. “He’s getting our tickets.”

“Sorry, fellas, I’m already late.”

Paul stepped off the bus, looked toward the escalator, and exclaimed, “There he is!”

The driver rolled his eyes and indicated he would wait. Within moments, Tom showed up, short of breath, tickets in hand. As they made thier way to the back of the bus, John told Paul, “It sure was great that you saw Tom coming; the bus would have left if you hadn’t.”

“That was good acting, don’t you think? ” Paul retorted.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t see him coming; I only said that to stall the driver. We were lucky he showed up when he did!”

Real faith is acting as if your good is on its way even before you have evidence it is so. Jesus told us to give thanks for the answers to our prayers before we see the results. Faith is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes, and the more power you have to bring your good into visibility. Proclaim your good as if you already have it even before you see it, and you will see it.