Spirit Education Blog

Posted on

Can Peace be Attained?

I feel obliged to speak a little about Peace as it pertains to today’s world.

So much of the world is polarized right now by the political climate that exists, not only in this country, but around the world. So much so, that there no longer seems to be any common ground from which we can begin to build a lasting peace.

Yes, all that seems crazy, but I believe it is marking a move into a more conscious, compassionate and empathetic world. We are in the throes of change to a higher consciousness and everyone and everything that is unwilling to make the change is revolting. Eventually they will all just fall by the wayside. Patience and prayer are key. Change is the only constant.

I know it’s difficult to watch and read about the unfolding chaos, but whenever there is great change in the offing, there is great turmoil. We have seen great change in the past. It always seemed slow at first, but then it just seemed to explode.

For more than two millennia the only form of travel on the water was by oars or sail. It was only 200 years ago the first steamship sailed forth and now there are ships that travel the oceans at over 60mph.

Again, more than two millennia ago the stories of Daedalus and his son Icarus took flight, but until 100 years ago, manned flight in a powered craft was still only in its infancy. Today we have been to the moon and beyond.

So tonight, let us know that if we are willing to take this high road of non-resistance, the potential for change can be more swift and more dramatic than we ever thought it could.

How can we effect this change?

There is only one way to effect change on a massive scale and that is for everyone to be of one mind. We know the truth of this is that we already are, but until there is a blanket realization of this, all of humanity’s fractured ideas of God — my god, your god and their god being thought of as different — until we can come together and accept that all of our different ideas of God are just a matter of semantics and that God is God is God, we will not be united in a peace that passes all understanding.

As I see it, LOVE is the way, the only way to achieve this lofty goal of bringing heaven to earth. Love is the glue that can binds us together. Love is the only path we can follow to return to the Garden of Eden.

Love is the only way to wash away the mistakes of all our lifetimes, so that we may start anew.

So, let us take this word LOVE and hold it close, and let us meditate for the next ten minutes on LOVE and know that as we begin to know this wholly in ourselves, we know it unfolds in this unified field of connectivity to which we all belong.

So join me in silent recognition for LOVE. Take about 10 minutes, if you have to time and sit in silent prayer for a better world, a “WorldThatWorksforEveryone.

in peace, rev jim

Posted on

What is a world that works for everyone?

What does that look like? How do we get there?

Some might say we are there already, and in a limited sense, we are.

agreement-black-business-943630We are not limited in the possibility that the world can work for everyone, but in our belief that it doesn’t work already.It works right now by the conscious belief that it does or doesn’t. While I may believe it works for me, and it does, another person may feel that the world really sucks for them. So, by our belief in the idea that it works, it does. And, conversely, by ones belief that it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean it can’t, but their choice is it doesn’t.

How can this be? How can it work for me, but not for everyone? It works by our belief in it, and by our disbelief that it could. It’s that simple, but we have to learn to let go of our expectations that everything must happen the way we expect it, and be open to the idea that there is another way, or another possibility.

Most people get stuck in the idea that their way is the only way and that everything must unfold exactly as they have planned it. If they were the only ones who existed in the moment that may be true, but with 7 billion people and just as many thoughts, we need to be open to the idea that just maybe there is an alternate or better way.

I remember when I was manufacturing hot sauce, I had this great idea for a name that was colorful, and enticing. I checked the trademark and there was nothing, so I engaged an artist friend of mine to design a label around my theme “Leapin’ Lizards.”

I designed the labels and was ready to send them to the printer when I took a trip to Miami to buy equipment and visited a manufacturer I was thinking of using for distribution and went on a tour of his factory. It was there that I was introduced to “Leapin’ Lizards” marinade. There were hundreds of cases and right then, I knew my label idea was history.

I could have let that be my demise or held the thought that my hot sauce line was doomed, but I knew something else would come along, and upon returning to the islands a friend referred to my sauces as being “a little spice from paradise” and a new tag line was borne. From that came a bunch of even better ideas and Caribbean Marketplace and “Mean Mama Jamma” were borne.

So, just because something doesn’t work the first time, doesn’t mean it won’t work, or that something even better won’t come along. Heck, Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb hundreds of times, but in the end, he did. In the process what he did was to eliminate all of the ways not to have it work. That’s what the scientific method is all about. You may be a success right out of the gate or you may have to work at it a little. That’s life.

So, how do we build a world that works in a positive, sustaining, productive way for everyone?

We open our minds to ideas that are inclusive of everyone. We begin to respect each other’s cultures and recognize that in the differences, we find similarities.We learn to engage in real conversations that build on those relationships and cultivate them with compassion and empathy. And, above all, we learn engage with and respond to people from a loving place.

Will this happen overnight? Probably not, but the only way it will happen at all is, if we try.

Image: Courtesy of Pexels.com

Posted on

Disappointment

disappoint-MLKIt’s something we all feel from time to time. Mostly we feel it from expectations we have made with another. It could be related to a business relationship, a personal relationship or a combination of both.

We all handle it in different ways. In different times of our lives, we may have handled it differently also.  Many get angry, and feel violated, used, or even betrayed by a friend or colleague. We may seek restitution, or revenge.

What I feel today is disappointment. I know it will pass and I know little will change in my life overall. I will continue to do what I am inspired to do.

What I have learned from years of dealing with people is, whenever we put our faith in anything less than our Creator, we set ourselves up for disappointment or regret.

The squishy, gushing, human love we experience as humans is fickle at best. It is subject to emotions, whims, outside opinions and personal likes.

You can see this acting out daily between our press and our president, between democrats and republicans, and between all manner of people, because, as humans, we have expectations that aren’t always met. If that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t need an army, law enforcement, or lawyers. We wouldn’t even need laws, because we would all do “what is right.”

This could be the beginnings of a book, but few would follow, so I guess I’ll just end this with a phrase once shared by one of our great masters. It was actually shared by many of or great spiritual teachers of all faiths.

“Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”

Peace and Love to you all.

rev jim

Posted on

Attention and Intention

What do you want? Have you stated the intention of your desire?

Did you know that is just the first step? Once you know what you want, you need t bring that front and center. The only way to do that is to think about it and focus your energy on it.

When you think about, do you say, “I can have this!” or “I don’t deserve this!”? In other words, what do you do to support your desire? The first statement supports your desire, and the second refutes it.

It’s very important that you support yourself. If not you, then who?

The other part of supporting yourself is to “move your feet.” That means that you move in the direction of your desires. In order to move in the direction of your desires, you need to do things that support you attaining your desire. As an example, I f you want to lose weight, you can buy healthier foods, eat smaller portions, and exercise. That helps to bring it all into focus. The universe is FOR you.  Remember that. Cancel out that little voice that is the naysayer.

So, are you ready to have what you desire?

~revjim

Posted on

Being “On Fire!”

Give a man a match and he’ll be warm for a night, set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
  ~Jed McKenna, The Theory of Everything

Have you ever been “On Fire?”

I don’t mean it in the literal way as in, as in being engulfed in a blaze. I mean it in the sense of, Have you ever felt that conviction that something had a higher purpose for you and you felt compelled to pursue this dream or vision you had?

Emmett Fox called it “your Heart’s Desire.” It’s more often referred to as “your passion.” When you’re passionate about something, it can be consuming, usually in a good way.

When you pursue your passion, you are seldom disappointed, and nothing can get in your way during that pursuit, because you are focused. Most often that focus is not on the completion, which may or may not be attainable, but on the joy it will give the individual or group you are directly or indirectly doing the work for.

I remember when I was a carpenter/contractor. Though I was building something, a room, a house, or a deck, the focus of my passion of creating something was less about the completion of the project, which of course was important to getting paid, but more about the joy the completed project would bring the client for years to come, and the look on their faces, when they saw the final result. That was my real payoff.

When I resigned from banking in 1978, I never did any job or made any career change because of money. I’m not sure I can even say that anything I’ve done since then was a job, because I loved all the things I did, and I didn’t do them for the money. I did them out of love for what I was doing, passionately creating! The money was a manifestation of the love I put into what I loved.

I guess I’ve always been “on fire.”

~revjim

Posted on

shared from Rev. Michelle’s Friday Morning Musing

From This Thing Called You, by Ernest Holmes pg. 60

Everything you have ever thought, said, done, seen, learned or experience, has left an imprint upon your subconscious mind. This subconscious also contains memory images of your family life, your ancestral background and the sum total of what the whole world has thought or believed.
These memories are not dead things. Quite the reverse, they are active.

From The Principles of Healing, by H.B. Jeffrey pg. 74

For healing is largely a matter of contagion. We have used that word as though its meaning were appropriate only to disease and undesirable conditions. We have linked it in our minds with pathological states. But contagion is a perfectly legitimate word in relation to good. there was a contagion of peace and joy, happiness and serenity. There is a contagion of the sense of opulence and bounty.

From me. . .

As practitioners, we are here to represent the Science of Mind teaching as a power for good and for change on our planet. We are here to be a contagion for love, healing and possibility. When random people see YOU, do they see someone walking in the light of Truth? In my mind, this is the goal. In order, to support this high calling though, we must stay aware of the influences that surround us and that preceded us into this incarnation. We each carry with us, not only who we have been in this lifetime, but we carry our ancestors. Are we at the mercy of this? – NO, not ever but we are called to be conscious about it and to treat in a focused way. Taking time to release the pain of the old, to practice forgiveness for what was.
STAYING conscious, in this case means using the only tool we use to direct our mind (or the mind of your client) to a place of freeing oneself from what was – and that means that which has been given to us through the ages. As Dr. Holmes said above: “These memories are not dead things. Quite the reverse, they are active.” I REPEAT, we are not at the mercy of what was, but we are called to do our work in consciousness.

Much love to you on this glorious day! Remain Brilliant, the world needs your brilliance.
Michelle

Guest Blogger:
Rev. Michelle Wadleigh
www.michellewadleigh.com
www.cslnj.org
revmichelle2

Posted on

Our only enemy is ourself!

“Before making peace, war is necessary, and that war must be made with our self. Our worst enemy is our self: our faults, our weaknesses, our limitations. And our mind is such a traitor! What does it? It covers our faults even from our own eyes, and points out to us the reason for all our difficulties: others! So it constantly deludes us, keeping us unaware of the real enemy, and pushes us towards those others to fight them, showing them to us as our enemies.”

– Hazrat Inayat Khan

mirrorWhat is it about ourselves that always seems to find the faults in another without realizing our own? Is it that we see our own limitations in others? We believe our own thoughts though they may be erroneous, but we can’t do the same for others? Our own limitations don’t allow us to know the truth of others?

To all of these possibilities I would say a resounding YES! And, all of these images of our self are the fantasies of Ego. Our ego is the protective device that reminds us to pull our hand away from a hot flame, dodge a thrown punch, and not to get scammed by con artists. It is our internal alarm system. It is the this system, which keeps us safe.

So, what is it that allows us to be so sure of the collective thoughts of others that we completely dismiss the thoughts of intelligent people with a greater world view for the myopic thoughts of fringe groups with limited, divisive views? Again, it is the ego. When these same myopic views of others grab our attention and begin to appeal to our own limited thinking and we buy into someone else’s self styled view of how God, the world, a particular race or group should be treated, we have given away our power allowing someone else to think for us.

Ego is a powerful protective system, but we can get lazy a put ourselves in even greater jeopardy by not tempering our ego with following our heart. The heart, when we don’t block it out, is the pat part of us which sees beyond our limiting beliefs and allows us to feel. It is the part of us that seems to break in tragedy, and brings us back when our grieving has ended. It is that part of us which builds relationships allowing our interaction with others. It is our true self, our sharing self, our caring self.

It is our spiritual center which defines our divinity. It knows only unconditional love. It is the heart which allows us to be vulnerable, to fall in love, and to want good for the whole world, irrespective of our differences. It is our heart from which compromise springs. And it is a closed heart which commits evil acts, atrocities.

When we begin to act from our heart, this will be a world that works for everyone!

~rev jim

Posted on

Moving beyond fear!

What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion.”
― Sri Aurobindo

MoveBeyondFear“What do you think about that?”someone said to me, referencing something they had heard.
“I have no opinion, because I have no first hand knowledge of what happened,” says I.

Why do people expect you to jump into a conversation you have no first hand experience about? I have found over the years, at least for me, that supporting someone else’s thought becomes a brainless and uncaring act, unless I first know for myself what the many sides of an issue or thought represent and more importantly, where I stand on an issue, if I have a stand at all.

Most of the time I keep my opinions to myself, because I realize that my opinion normally represents a limited understanding of a complex problem, and, if I haven’t fully explored the many facets of a usually simple statement that has been queried, I am only reacting to it, not responding intelligently.

I have found reactions are usually made out of fear of losing something. People are living in such fear today; fear of bodily harm, fear of some right being taken away, fear of being deported, fear of being outed. Fear is a strong and very limiting emotion. It makes us do crazy and unimaginable things. There are people waste their entire lives, promoting promoting fear through words, violence, and making things up about others.

I remember when Hurricane Matthew was bearing down on us in 2016, the SJC Emergency Management Director came through on my cellphone screaming that I had to leave my house right now and evacuate or “I would die!”

I’ve lived through cat4 & 5 hurricanes in the Caribbean and Florida. I’ve been a contractor in both places and had major success in not just surviving hurricanes, but thriving during and after by assisting others. I would never put myself in an unreasonable risk situation. I’ve normally lived on islands where you couldn’t escape anyway, so you hunker down and pray for the best. Florida is no different. There’s no where to go, unless you leave many days before the track is even locked in by our weather guessers. And, as a contractor, I know that, if a building has been built to code, you may get wet, but are probably safe otherwise. If I hit the road, chances are I could end up riding the storm out in the Walmart parking lot in Palatka. Almost a been there, done that. That would be less fun than sitting in a foot of water saving what I can of my belongings.

Anyway, you get the point, fear is our worst enemy, and if we buy into it, we’re already lost. If we are reasonable and don’t allow fear to be our guide, the world really doesn’t look that bad. I approach incidents and situations on a one off. I trust until I’m shown someone or something is untrustworthy. I try not to judge by ethnicity, race, religious beliefs or social position, but I am sometimes ashamed of my behavior, and try to be better, when I catch myself.

There is no place in my life for hate. It only makes life a hell. I see so many people living their lives in a self-imposed hell today. I choose not to. Life in this body is too short. I learned a while ago, I’d rather be happy than right. That’s a story for another time.

-rev jim

Posted on

Our Spiritual Nature

Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world.

~ Anam Ċara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

 

spi-natOur spiritual nature is an inextricable part of us. Yet, while we do not wear it on our sleeve, it does live within us and there is evidence of it all around us. Nature is all spiritual, because it never exists in opposition to the divine. Man is the only creature on earth that tries to defy nature, creating artificial substances and devices in an attempt to “cheat death,” part of the birth-death-rebirth cycle, which is common to all life.

We are the only creatures, that think ourselves to death. Rather than living in a flow, we create blocks of resistance, which cause us to become out of sync with the world around us. We are the only creatures on the planet that don’t give back to the earth in a natural way. We use, abuse, rape and pillage its natural beauty and resources and leave behind refuse that is indigestible and non-renewable.

Yet, if we just looked to the mystical roots of all of our religions or spiritual paths, we would find that if we did the inner work, spent time looking within ourselves, we would find all the answers to living a gloriously, happy life, that isn’t about consumption and destruction. We would find that whatever we do and whoever we are is enough. We would find that we don’t have to keep up with the Joneses, because we have already surpassed them in the only way necessary. We are happy with our life as it is.

When we are in the flow of life, we find that everything we need is already provided for us. Just as all of nature, unobstructed by man, receives everything it needs, we would receive all that we needed and more. The natural ecosystem is a phenomenally complex system, which provides what is necessary for life. When the system is attacked, it makes necessary corrections to bring itself back into alignment.

We can do the same thing with our lives. If we get out of alignment, we can change how we do things or think about things to bring ourselves back into alignment with life, and find ourselves happier, healthier and more energetic.

~rev jim

Posted on

Judge not!

The secret of harmonious living lies in the ability to withdraw all our estimates and judgments of situations and people.

– Joel Goldsmith, The Thunder of Silence

listenOne of the interesting things about our mind is that everything we see, hear, or feel during our lifetime we have an opinion about. While some are observations, most of the time we make an immediate judgment about that thing or idea, rather than an observation.. More often than not, that. Judgment is not always even based on personal data collection or experience. It’s usually based on something we’ve heard and, more often than not, it’s based on something we’ve only heard in conversation and never personally verified. When we do this we diminish ourselves. When we do that we’re not speaking our truth. Instead, we’re giving our power to know the truth to someone else.

When we do make a call on our belief of something or someone, do we do so from the aspect of Love? Do we know what has driven that person to say what they said? Do we share from the perspective of having walked “a mile in their moccasins?” Are the words we use kind? Are they incite-filled or full of insight?

Today, the world seems to be in general state of laziness. The professional people we used to be able to trust for truth, in general, can no longer be trusted to share the truth.

People are speaking before they think about what they are saying. They react to something, rather than responding. By that I mean they speak from their emotions (ego), rather than responding in a way that might invite greater inquiry and discussion, which might find some more common ground, or a common position of compromise. It’s become a “My way, or the highway” kind of world. We would have to be robotic drones to all believe or do the same thing. How boring would that be?

What we can do though, is to begin being more kind to each other, being more understanding of people’s religious and cultural mores, and not prejudging people by the color of their skin, ethnicity, their sex or sexual orientation. When we condemn someone for any of these qualities, we condemn ourselves by our own ignorance. We would do better to get to know someone rather than misjudge them out of the door.

-jts
www.spirit-edu.com