Life is not “lived” in fear.
Life is lived by stepping out into the world, confronting fear,
and then moving beyond it into a greater, more magnificent expression of Life as us.
jts
Know that ye are Gods?
Jesus tried time. and time again to tell the crowds and his disciples that everyone was like him that each of us has the power to heal, the power to change our lives and the world just by changing our thoughts.
It was so 2,000 years ago and it is so today. There was no magic formula to Jesus’ teachings beyond a willingness on our parts to forgive and be grateful. Of course, it’s more complicated than that in practice, not in its essence. I left out one thing though and it is essential to making any change anywhere, anytime. It is the essence of Jesus teaching,
L-O-V-E!
It was not only the essence of his teaching, but was the essence of his life. He tried to always live from love. And most of the time he was able to do that. He also proved that he was human from time to time like throwing the money changers from the temple and often showing frustration with his disciples.
So, this thing Jesus was teaching us or trying anyway, what was it? It was that if we can be grateful for our life as it is right now even though it may not seem perfect, and if we can forgive ourselves for our mistakes, then we can choose to move into a new idea for our life starting right now.
Of course our story is what has made our life and brought us to this place and time, but is it how we want our life to continue? Does it allow for a new idea to emerge for us? Does our “story” allow us a place to grow from or does it just keep us shackled to our old boring story?
Do we have the courage to make a change or do we want to stay with that which is comfortable even though that comfortable place may actually be painful? Most people don’t have the willingness to make the honest assessment to move beyond the place of stuckness that they are presently in because they don’t believe in themselves. That’s a stark truth and one we often aren’t able to admit.
It can cause great upheaval in ones life to have the courage to just walk away from your past in order to move into a new and greater idea of you. And, it requires a huge leap of faith. Sometimes it can feel like you’re doing a high wire act without a net. But, the net is there. You just can’t see it. It’s the belief that what you’re doing right now, making that move, believing in yourself and the direction you’re going above all the nay-sayer’s comments that makes it happen and carries you through.
I’ve made that leap many times. My first was from banking and a weekly paycheck to being a self-employed carpenter-contractor with little professional carpentry skills and a partner I barely knew on a small island in Rhode Island in the middle of Narragansett Bay. All I knew was, I didn’t want to be a banker anymore, and I loved working with my hands. I never thought I would fail. Then, eighteen years later, I added hot sauce manufacturing to my resume, built a factory in an outbuilding on my property in Puerto Rico and succeeded at that, and then… The list goes on. That’s not the point though. I had faith in myself. I was doing something I loved and because I believed in me and what I was doing, Another reason I succeeded where others failed, was because I didn’t listen to those around who thought I would fail. The power of love manifests itself in your beliefs of what you can or cannot do. By that I mean, if you believe you can succeed at something, then you must have enough love or belief in yourself to do that.
So, I leave you with this question.
Do you believe if you make a change that you will succeed, or do you believe it will fail?
Ultimately, if you believe you’ll fail, you will! If, on the other hand, you believe you will succeed, you will. It’s all in the thought.
What’ll it be?
~ jt starke
Giving Up!
Funny, this word never used to be in my vocabulary. It still isn’t in the conventional sense. I have never given up on something I’ve thought was worthwhile. As I think about this, I know that I’ve almost never done something that I didn’t think was worthwhile, for me or someone I was trying to help.
So what has changed? Only the most basic reason, that I am doing it for me, or that I am doing it at all. It used to be when I was doing something I truly thought that it was me doing it. That I was in charge. I believed that it was my intellect that made it happen and I was the Mr. Smarty Pants that was responsible for all the great ideas. Then I realized that I was part of something greater. I realized that there was something at work here that is without equal in the universe, and it’s all a part of me, a part of all of us really.
There is a power in the universe, no, it is the universe, and it is the infinite source of our good. We can ignore it, or try to, but when we do that it is still there operating in and as us. It is our thoughts, and as we think about things the landscape of our life is being painted for us. The details of how our life unfolds, is pretty much up to us, and how we paint it. The colors we use and the detail we put into it paints a picture of greater and greater clarity.
Sometimes the colors we use don’t work, but luckily our canvas is not indelible, and we can scrape off what doesn’t work or paint over the old, or better yet, begin with a new canvas. It is totally up to us. We are always supported from within as we fill the canvas of our lives.
We can start with a blank canvas anytime, and this clean white canvas can be filled with our most precious thoughts, or grandest dreams. We can paint this canvas in black and white, allow for shades of gray, or paint it in glorious color. It’s always best to keep it light of course, allowing for great and glorious things to unfold in full, living color. So, pull out that brush, spatula or crayons, and draw yourself a beautiful life. Allow the broad brush strokes of life to move through you in grandiose ways. Paint your thoughts like your life depends on it. Dreams become reality, and thoughts are things. If you keep your thoughts in alignment with how you want your canvas and your life to look, both will become the masterpiece your mind has painted.
So, give up. Yes, give up on your old thoughts and ideas, if they’re not working for you and know that you are the artist of your life, and your thoughts out-picture as your life. The universe always gives you what you paint. Keep it bright and give it up to the power that resides within you and each one of us!
Are you ready to start with a fresh canvas?
~jim starke
#onlineeducation #aworldthatworks
In Process
It’s a funny thing. I have never really believed in being “in process.” I have always believed and lived by the idea that you do something until it doesn’t serve you anymore, and then move on to something. more interesting and exotic maybe that works for you and for everyone around you. I have always been. very clear about my life and all the people in it, where I am in relation to them,and in relation to how my life unfolds.
It’s always been very apparent to me, because there was always a feeling that I’ve had when one part of my life was complete and new chapter was beginning. This clarity always made it a pretty easy transition from the old place to the new. Whatever angst there might be over the change was always removed with my initial immersion into my new career, location or relationship. There was never a process, never a long intro that left me wondering if I was doing the right thing. I always jumped into life with both feet.
When I came to Science of Mind, I noticed that being “in process” seemed to be fairly common and in talking to different people I noticed that it was a convenient way of not moving into a new idea of one’s self. “Oh’ I’m working on that, but it is in process.” Some people I knew when I first came to the teaching are still “in process.”
But, you can’t experience that rush of new life, if you’re always in that state. Last year I moved myself out of one fairly lucrative business and into another business just as I always had, but there has been one area of my life where I seem to be “in process” and I just realized I have been for over four years.
What’s up with that? Am I in denial? Oh crap! I just realized there are two areas.
So here I sit, a hypocrite. I’ve got some serious work to do to get to the place I want to be, and I can’t expect anyone else to do it for me, although I think that’s what I’m waiting to happen. And’ it’s obvious that’s not going to happen.
I need to heed my own words and just do it. Get off my butt, and make the moves I need to make. If they’re not right, that’s OK. I can always try again. That’s what life is all about. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
So, stay tuned and I’ll update you in the months to come.
~jts
Prayer Works!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. . .
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Prayer Works!
We always talk about prayer, which is the backbone of our teaching, and talk about how effective it is. We tend sometimes to be almost elitist with our effectiveness claims. The bottom line is, Prayer Works!
Is the way we pray any better than anyone elses? Yes and no.
The way we pray is called “scientific,” in as much as it has specific steps that have been proven again and again. And, depending on what minister’s site you go to or what author’s book you read even that varies. Even our Centers for Spiritual Living’s official previous organizations put forth two different styles of Treatment/Prayer. One was 5 step and the other, well a 5 and 7 step. It caused a brief stir until it was realized that the two additional steps were “understood” within the 5 step treatment.
But really, is any religion’s style of prayer better than another? Not if it’s from the heart and not if it’s not from a place of fear, lack, or desperation alone. If when we pray, we pray with a sense completion, put our demand to the universe knowing that our word is made manifest, however that may sound to you, the universe must respond. If on the other hand, your prayer is filled with doubt, and lost in a place of lack, then whether there are 5 steps or 55 steps, it will make no difference.
So, if Spiritual Mind Treatment/Affirmative Prayer is more effective, it is because the steps create an alignment within the pray-er and their God and the pray-er then steps a firm intention not to cure the illness or the lack, but to know the truth for themselves in the spiritual is the same Truth of themselves in the physical world. It is a positive affirmation of the faith and belief behind the word they seek to heal. To truly know that it is already done and accomplished is the highest form of faith. When the cripple stated to Jesus that if he could just touch “the hem of his garment” he knew he would be healed, he made a powerful statement of faith, not about Jesus as a healer, but of his own perfect, in the moment, faith, and so it was! And Jesus’ words were, “by your faith you are healed.”
On this day, know that your love and your faith are all you need to live abundantly. Believe and all else is added.
Namasté,
~rev jim
Love is the Way!
There has never
been any doubt
in my mind that
Love is the Way!