LYING WITH GOD

After getting all of the Pope's luggage into the limo (and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices the Pope still standing on the curb.

"Excuse me, Your Holiness, would you please take your seat?"

"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive at the Vatican when I was a cardinal, and now that I'm Pope, I'd really like to drive today."

"I'm sorry, Your Holiness,” the driver nervously proclaims, “but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?"

"What could happen, who's going to tell,” the Pope says smiling? Besides, there might be something extra in it for you."

Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel and floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 mph.

"Please slow down, Your Holiness!" pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal. In a few minutes, they hear sirens. "Oh, Dear God, I'm gonna lose my license -- and my job!" moans the driver.

The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches. The cop takes one look at who the driver is and goes back to his motorcycle. He then gets on the radio and says to the dispatcher, "I need to talk to the Chief."

The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five.

"So bust him," says the Chief. 

"I don't think we want to do that, he's really big," said the cop.

The Chief exclaimed," All the more reason!" 

"No, I mean really important," said the cop.

The Chief asks, "Who ya got there, the Mayor?”  

Cop: "Bigger."

Chief: "The Governor?"  

Cop: "Bigger."

Chief: "The President?"  

Cop: "Bigger."

"Well, who is it,” the Chief asks, now irritated?  

Cop: "I think it's God!"

“What, what,” the Chief screams, "did you say God? You been drinking, John?”
Cop: " No Sir."

Chief : "Then what makes you think it's God?"
Cop: "Well Chief, he's got the Pope as a chauffeur."

Who are you driving around? Is it the Divine in you, free and clear, or is there additional baggage in the trunk?

Do you filter everything you hear, feel and think by the illusion called ego?  The ego is the false, fear-based idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do. It is also a way of edging God out.

Or are you reflecting your inner reality and Entertaining God only?

Two people have been living in you all of your life. One is the ego: garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to...the wise guide.

~Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Who's driving this vehicle you are traveling around in this time and who are you listening to on its radio? Is it the God in you or that voice that falsely reminds you of your supposed or learned inadequacies (i.e. “Not good enough,” “Too old or young or...”)?

Do you lie, with God? By that I mean are you not telling the Truth or soaking in blame, shame and guilt or thinking your time is up or believing this person or that knows better?

"I don't lie to God," you might say. But I want to tell you that if you lie to yourself, you are lying...with God.  If you make a mistake and your first thought goes something like, “I’m so bad at this!” or “What an idiot!” or “I never get this right!,” you are lying...with God.  If you don't practice self-love, you are lying to the God in you with the Power of God that lies within you....you are lying, with God, the Power of Divine Intelligence that you possess. 

The Law of Cause and Effect always supports you without question or judgment. Whether you are lying with or lying to the Divine in you. It's time we learn to do the same for ourselves - support our Divinity.

In 365 Days of Richer Living, Dr. Ernest Holmes says:

We should believe that God is the invisible partner in our lives and affirm that Divine Love goes before us and prepares the way.

In that belief, you also lie with God (though some may say lay, but either is correct in this context).  When you are reclining in the state of knowing that wherever I am, God is, loving me unconditionally and completely, no matter what, you are lying with God.

"But how do I do this," you might ask. In The Science of Mind, it says:

The highest mental practice is to listen to this Inner Voice and to declare Its Presence. The greater (one's) consciousness of this Indwelling I AM, the more fully (one) will live.

It's hard to not live successfully, when you recline in the direction of Divine Intelligence with love. And what is love? 

     Love is the central flame of the universe, nay, the very fire itself. It is written that God is Love, and that we are (It's) expressed likeness, the image of the Eternal Being. Love is self-givingness through creation, the impartation of the Divine through the human.     Love is an essence, an atmosphere, which defies analysis, as does Life Itself. It is that which IS and cannot be explained: it is common to all people, to all animal life, and evident in the response of plants to those who love them. Love reigns supreme over all.

The most fabulous Love component in our life is our volition. Our God-given ability to believe what we want, use our powerful birthright of choice to perceive things how we want and to use that Power for Good in the Universe through the Law of Cause and Effect to manifest what we require in our experience.

There is an illumination, an energy that surrounds us at all times and we get to allow it to shine constantly or obscure it at any time; to live in the luminescence of Divine Love or decide that we aren't deserving or aren't enough. We get to decide, every day, every hour, every minute, every time and throughout our entire lives which we are.

The more we spin in this cycle of 'not enough,' the more and more we draw ourselves away from the experience of a Unity with all Life and Love. We start to erect barriers to the expression of the Divine within. And this becomes a habit, even an unconscious one, but a habit of eclipsing our connection to the Divine and living stuck in the rut of believing in some form of 'not enough-ness.'

The was an eclipse recently. It was a seven minute event, two of which were the darkest of the event. Cultures throughout the world believe many myths about this type of event:

In Vietnam, a frog eats the moon or the sun.

For the people of the Kwakiutl tribe on the western coast of Canada, there is the belief that the mouth of heaven consumes the sun during an eclipse.

In fact, the earliest word for eclipse in Chinese, shih, means "to eat." People banged pots and pans or played on drums to get whatever was swallowing the sun or the moon to go away.

One of the more colorful stories involves the Hindu demon Rahu, who disguises himself as a god in order to steal a taste of an elixir that grants immortality. The sun and moon see what Rahu is up to, and they report his crime to the god Vishnu. Vishnu slices off his head before [the elixr] can slide past his throat. As a consequence, Rahu's head turns immortal, but his body dies. The demon's head continues to move through the sky, chasing the sun and the moon out of hatred. Every now and then he catches them and swallows them. But since Rahu has no throat, the sun and the moon fall out of the bottom of his head.

Others are not so violent or scary as with the Batammaliba people of Togo in Africa, who see it as a time of coming together and resolving old feuds and anger. 

Or the Navajo, who regard the cosmic order of the universe as being all about balance. Something like an eclipse is just part of nature's law. You pause to acknowledge that that time is special and you reflect on the cosmic order.

The Story of Amaterasu  Amaterasu was the Sun goddess. Her gentle  beauty and warmth radiated a life force  throughout the blessed land of Japan and far  beyond, showing the people their beauty and  potential.  Susa was the Storm god and Amaturasu's brother. He was the one who released pent-up feelings, shaking things up if they  became too stagnant. The people called upon him often when  things needed to get moving again. Susa was also known  affectionately as The Impetuous Male, because he loved to  move quickly, creating chaos and noise wherever he went.  Now the elders tell us that one day, Susa went up to the  heavenly realm to visit his sister, Amaterasu. In his haste to see her, Susa moved through the sky with a crackling thunder,  shaking mountains and rivers and sending all living beings into  hiding. The night seemed to fill with dancing furies as an inky  velvet spread across the sky.  Even Amaterusa became frightened and decided to take a few  precautions when meeting him. She placed a quiver at her side  and a bow in her hand as she stepped forward to greet him.  "Why do you disturb the peace of our kingdom, brother? Surely, you have more than enough activity in your own kingdom!"  Amaterusa looked at Susa a little disdainfully through her  bowstrings. This was not exactly the picture of love and  devotion he was hoping to find. Susa replied in his most courtly  manner, "O, radiant, fair sister, I wish you no harm. My only  desire is your warm company, a glimpse of your lovely face, and a few pleasant words before I descend to the underworld to find  our most esteemed mother."  His answer pleased her, but Amaterusa knew her brother well  and decided to ask for more proof of his good intentions. Susa  proposed that they should create demi-gods who would rule the  blessed land wisely. He hoped Amaterasu would then realize  that he had all of their best interests at heart.  Amaterasu agreed and took her brother’s sword, broke it into  three pieces, and after chewing the pieces for many days and  nights, blew a light mist from her mouth, which gave birth to  three beautiful goddesses. Susa then asked his sister for the  five jewels she was wearing, and after cracking them between  his teeth, blew a light mist from his mouth and gave birth to five  powerfully masculine deities.  Although he had created the five gods from Amaterusa’s jewels,  Susa was very pleased with himself and began jumping around  boasting of his omnipotence. When Amaterasu reminded him  that the gods had been created from her jewels, Susa became  enraged. Why didn’t she appreciate him?!  Losing all self-control, he released the wind and rain he held  under his waving arms, destroying Amaterasu’s carefully tended rice fields, filling in her precious irrigation ditches, and even  depositing mud in her temples!  This was just the kind of behavior Amaterasu had come to  expect from her brother, but at first she made excuses for him.  "Well, he just couldn’t help himself," she thought. It was his  nature to leap around causing chaos wherever he turned.  Unfortunately, Amaterasu’s pity made no difference. It was as if  some inner demon drove Susa to worse and worse deeds, just  to see how far he could push the radiant, oh so self-contained  goddess.  Perhaps she would lose her temper and become just like him,  a true sister at last! After all, how could she possibly like and  understand him if she remained so distant, so superior all the  time? He would knock her off her grand pedestal, once and for  all!  One day, Amaterasu was weaving the god’s clothes in her  sacred chamber, taking a momentary, peaceful respite from her  worries, when Susa decided to send a final message to his  sister. He flayed a horse, made a hole in the roof of the house,  and threw the dead horse into her circle of weaving women.  On the saddle of the dead horse, was a note that read, "Things  are not always as black and white as they seem."  This frightening event caused one of Amaterasu’s oldest friends to  fall dead at her feet, and Amaterasu, worn out by all the recent  tempests, could only think of running away. She ran as far as  she could to a rocky cave and blocked the entrance with a  boulder. No more strife!  The world was left in darkness. She sat a very, very long time in the  cave, brooding, feeling that it was somehow all her fault.  Perhaps she had failed her brother in some important way.  Perhaps she lacked the ability to love. In her headlong flight  to the cave, she had lost her ability to see clearly... her light was truly dimmed.  But the darkness within the cave was nothing compared to the  darkness outside the cave. The people had lost their radiant  mother and sat huddled in their homes, listless and hopeless.  Without her light in the kingdom, they could not see their own  strength and so had lost the will to go on. Slowly, the Earth  began to wither and die, causing demons to crawl from the  underworld and wreak their own chaos upon the people, plants, and animals upon its surface.  When things had begun to look blacker than the very night itself,the  eight hundred myriad of gods gathered together in the dry bed  of a river to decide how to get Amaterasu back. They begged  Uzume, the Goddess of laughter, to create a clever plan. She  collected roosters that could be relied upon to crow just before  dawn. Next, she told the gods to hang a mirror with strands of  jewels on the branches of a Sakaki tree, facing the entrance of  Amaterasu’s cave.  Next, Uzume stepped forward, stripped herself naked and  carefully dressed in various plants and bamboo leaves. Climbing onto a tub turned upside down at the entrance of the cave, she  began to dance.  Such a dance! She drummed her feet on the  tub and swung her hips and generally got carried away by divine ecstasy. All the eight hundred myriad of gods roared with  laughter and approval, hooting and hollering. By the light of a  thousand torches, the roosters began crowing loudly in unison.  Amaterasu, in her cave, was surprised, she had never before  heard such a noise in her peaceable kingdom. What could she  be missing? Finally, hearing the roaring laughter of the gods,  she couldn’t resist peering outside the cave. Everyone sounded  so happy without her!  Catching a glimpse of something in the mirror hanging in front of her, just for a moment Amaterasu forgot her fear and pain and  stood transfixed by a clear light. The luminescence of her being.  With that, she was unable to continue frowning for her  misfortune and Amaterasu let her light shine upon the Earth  once more. Just as quickly as they came, the demons and  dis-ease receded and the Earth was bathed in sunlight once  more.  She immediately returned to her palace and vowed never again  to be so frightened by any storm. Mirrors were hung in the  doorways to her temples, so that all who passed in or out might  look deeply into it. The elders say that the people of Japan, and  the gods themselves, carried on their lives with renewed  courage and joy. For it sometimes takes courage to look into the reflection of Light and Love. Next time there is an eclipse, instead of staring at the ring of fire, and possibly burning your eyes, take the time to think on how you are lying with God. Are you doing so with the fibs of facts, delusion, lack & limitation or reclining in the power of the Sun, vibrating at the speed of the Divine in you. The mirrors that Amaterasu decreed should be left at every doorway of her temples weren't for admiring the beauty of ones outside, but that of one's inside, the One within .... the I am that I AM. God (or whatever you want to call that Power) is our invisible partner. It's time to Love fully, starting within ... practicing that perfect and unconditional regard for ourselves until it spills out of our own hearts and into the lives and hearts of others. I invite you to recline in the Divine repose, illuminated by the Light of unconditional love and the power to bring into your life the best of success, prosperity, vitality and creative expression. Lie with God in your magnificence and watch your life soar! Namaste!