PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.  ~Adyashanti

Those who have heard me before know that I am focused on construction, not destruction

• replacing, not displacing
• application vs annihilation
• eliminating by activating
• losing bad habits through the creation of new ones to inhabit
• constituting the positive to decommission the negative
• leaving the school of hard knocks and enrolling in the university of Universal opportunities 

We are not victims....we are victors!
We do not survive...we thrive!
We do not struggle...we ascend!

I've encouraged you to move from thinking about the Divine idea to feeling It and experiencing It using spiritual practices and mystical experiences to rise above and beyond any one path, religion, or tradition; like a mountain with many trails, a tree with branches aplenty, or a river with numerous tributaries, deltas & wells.

We are not bound by the precedent of our habitual thoughts - they can be changed. We are not bound by the precedent of our beliefs or our actions, statements, or positions, they can all be changed, replaced, reconfigured, adapted, alternated, dissipated, elevated, updated, refreshed, or traded-in. We are freed by Principle - to surrender to the Truth, step around & past the mere facts in our life or the temporary diversions, deviations, detours, and roundabouts, and put them in the rearview mirror

How? 

By falling in love with the process. From centering and grounding through prayer and meditation, embodying Spirit directly, communing with the Divine with intention and purpose, and by practicing the ancient wisdom, New Thought, neuroscience, mysticism, metaphysics, love, peace, powerful grounding, centering, and the affirmative prayer aspects of clean slate spirituality

You don't have to have engaged in anything nefarious to join the clean-slate movement. You don't have to have immersed yourself in a series of addictions to have a do-over. You don't have to have committed a crime to get a second chance. It matters not if we welcome that clean slate or it is thrust upon us. Take the time to love and practice the opportunity for greater clarity, creativity, and new possibilities to emerge. 

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes, maybe most of the time, it isn't easy. Just start with the decision to practice some mindful spiritual activity, love the decision, and get passionate about the decision. Your willingness to embrace the moment, confront any pain is a powerful Practice of the Presence of the Divine. It is a practice of Oneness, Love, and Creation, a practice of engaging in quieting the mind & body and awakening the heart and soul, and a practice of living in alignment with our Science of Mind Principles and being congruent in thought, word, and behavior.

Loving a spiritual practice can be exhilarating or terrifying...usually both. I have faced a blank page, illness, an instant family, divorce, career changes, major moves, losses, successes - just like most of you. Many I have liked / many, not so much...clean slates both wanted and unwanted. Too often I find myself with a lot of 'doing' going on, however, the bigger answers always came from tapping the Source of Creation and Infinite Potentiality that is within me, using the heart instead of the brain, and the vibration of the Divine instead of the logic in the head. I know I have talked about it before...

        Cultivating self-awareness and self-reflection

...looking after and loving yourself

        Establishing a routine of examining your beliefs, behaviors, and fears

...and asking your heart whether or not they still serve you

Focusing on what you WANT

Not worrying about what other people think 

Following your passion and taking action

Surrounding yourself with allies, mentors, and like-minded people

But I get it. The birth of anything new may be full of pain and messiness, emotions may emerge...that's okay because they act as an inner GPS, letting you know if your thoughts are moving you further from or closer to Source. And any new or renewed spiritual practice can be sloppy or uninspiring:

Have you ever sat on your floor in the quiet, your hands placed on your knees, and you tell your brain to be still?

I have...it was anything and everything but...and that's okay.

Have you ever wondered if it is wrong to scratch during meditation or prayer?

  It's not...scratching an itch is self-care. Give it its moment and scratch.

I remember thinking it was smart to time myself in meditation. Have you?

Very quickly you think it's been forever, so you look at your phone and you can swear you hear it laughing at you. You see the timer reads 2:42 (two minutes and 42 seconds) and you set it for 10. It's okay - go ahead, have a stretch and try again. But first, stick your tongue out at your phone – I'm sure the timer was wrong (lol).

Here's an idea:  when you have to remind yourself to meditate, pray, do your vision board, etc.

...tell yourself you're practicing self-care
...just be sure to leave out the “f-ing” part
... self-care is more zen without the swear words....usually.

While in spiritual practice, have you ever wondered about the quiet? if it’s okay to NOT be quiet?

I have....so I put my phone timer on pause and asked Siri about it. She didn't know and cursed at me for pausing my meditation.

Or have you ever thought, “Did I pay the credit card this month?”

...and then chastise yourself with, “Shhhhh, relax.” And a few minutes later, “Wait, DID I?”  I have...this morning

Sometimes I decide that sitting on the floor trying to meditate isn’t what self-care looks like today so I put on some clothes (pandemic lock-down and all) and go sit outside or walk or watch a bird at the feeder or listen to Laura Berman on this evil contraption that times my meditations. Soon enough, sitting on the ground, my eyes closed, listening to the talent and wisdom and just being, not paying attention to the seconds or the weather or goals or duties or bills or the news...just remembering, I Am enough. By the time the song ends, I take a deep breath, stand, and know that I have just done some self-care.

Meditation and prayer?

Keep at it!

If that Treatment or prayer didn't feel good - start over. If you think your vision board is too rule-following - start over. 

• To live from the space of clarity and possibility, we are called to Practice the Presence regularly
• To release thoughts of past or future and ground ourselves in the present, we are called to Practice the Presence regularly 
• To experience whatever understanding or gift the moment has for us, we are called to Practice the Presence regularly

But seek first the kingdom of God and Its righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  ~Matthew 6:33

It doesn't mean you don't plan or set goals or ignore the future...you create the future by your practices today. 

Don’t allow your wounds to transform you into someone you are not.                                                                                              ~Paulo Coelho 

If crying in the shower is part of your spiritual practice, especially in the frustrations of lockdown, closed schools, work-at-home, unemployment, and everything else many of us are going through this last year - have at it.....love it....use it!

Spiritual practice is a personal, ever-evolving transformational tool. Just...Practice, Practice, Practice and

...make it to your own Carnegie Hall to get to!
...your own healthy body....your own happiness!
...your own lovefest....to create your own fabulous life!

Affirmative Incantation

I welcome the promise of a clean slate that every moment holds. And so, in this moment and the next and the next...

I have a renewed energy to get things done.

I do things that are fulfilling and gratifying.

I communicate clearly, specifically, and lovingly with myself and all around me.

I am focused on a habit of happiness and health.

I have the courage to step out of my comfort zone and be victorious.

I revel in the Truth that I am backed by the Universe in every solution that is required.

I protect and care for all that I love.

As I feel this love of all I Am, I Am being this Love of all I Am. With this feeling and beingness alive in the deepest part of me, I live this Love of all I Am in all I do right here, right now, and forevermore.

Standing On The Shoulders of Giants

So much of what I teach comes from Ernest Holmes and the books teaching the Science of Mind and Spirit, my teachers in New Thought, and those who have counseled me, been in class with me, or indirectly taught me or inspired me in other ways and from other fields of study. It all adds up and continues my growth and what I can bring to you. It also reminds me that though I may put a spin on something, make it my own, even inspire people with it, I am standing on the shoulder of giants. And even behind that, it is more about my openness to the open-source of all wisdom that comes to me from the Divine Source.

Like software for which the original source code is made freely available, and may be redistributed and modified, the wisdom of the ages and the intuitable creativity and imagination of the Universe is an open-source venue ...for everyone. Even Newton’s “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” wasn’t entirely original...

In the 12th century - John of Salisbury, who described himself as Johannes Parvus, was an English author, philosopher, diplomat and bishop of Chartres said, "We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

I look at my library and I see all these ideas that interested me, were suggested to me or required for me to read, and some I don't remember why I was inspired to have them. Many are stalwarts in our teaching, but all of them created by standing on the shoulders of giants from ancient times to the last couple of centuries, or from each other.

It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.  ~Jean-Luc Godard

An everyday example is found in the book,  Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, where Nassim Taleb describes an evening of a dinner out...

I realized I was going to a place the likes of which have been around for at least 2,500 years, in shoes similar to those worn at least 5,300 yrs ago, to use silverware designed by the Mesopotamians and drinking wine based on a 6K year-old recipe, from glasses invented 2,900 years ago, while eating cheese unchanged through the centuries (in fact, the older the better – right? wine too) while awaiting a dinner prepared with one of our oldest tools - fire, using utensils much like those the Romans developed.

2021 is not a New Year, New You. It is a New Year, NEWER you. As singer/songwriter Peter Allen wrote, “Everything old is new again.”

January's theme, in our year of AWAKENING, was Believe It. What we believe is the ground floor of our awakening. What we believe is the basis with which we experience a fabulous life and a fabulous life is a creative series of connecting the dots of wisdom throughout the ages, ancient to modern to today into our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Here's an example of connecting the dots wisely. It is about creating something you probably have in front of you right now:

1. The first touchscreen was developed by E.A. Johnson for air traffic control almost 50 years earlier than this thing

a. by 1975 other engineers built upon Johnson's work, developed and patented usable models

b. around the same time, the University of Illinois was developing touchscreen terminals for students

c. the first commercial touchscreen computer came out in 1983, soon followed by graphics boards, tablets, watches, and video game consoles

d. Casio released a touchscreen pocket computer in 1987 (20 years before iPhone)

2. Likewise, Kane Kramer (23 yrs old) designed a small portable hand-held touchscreen digital music player called the IXI

a. 1979 invention inspired by the Sony Walkman

b. held only 3.5 minutes of music

c. Kramer pitched it with the potential for immediate delivery, digital inventory, taped live performances, digital storage, and the promotion of new artists and micro-transactions.

Sound familiar? All that got us to the iPhone. Similarly, the technology for a fabulous life is already present and ready to have the dots connected. We can stand on the shoulders of giants right now to make these ideas our own; from Ernest Holmes, the Vedas, James Allen, Meister Eckhart, Wayne Dyer, Florence Scovil Shin, and hundreds of others. Even Shakespeare, drew heavily upon prior works to observe and create from (some may say, plagiarize)

• Hamlet took inspiration from a play based on Gesta Danorum, a twelfth-century work
• Holinshed's Chronicles was a comprehensive history of Britain originally published in 1577 - a source for Macbeth, King Lear, and Cymbeline. 
• Parts of Antony and Cleopatra are copied verbatim from Plutarch’s Life of Mark Anthony. 
• Arthur Brooke’s 1562 poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet brought us Romeo and Juliet. And that poem came from a 1559 poem by Pierre Boaistuau, who in turn drew from a 1554 story by Matteo Bandello, who in turn was inspired by a 1530 work by Luigi da Porto.

In 2015, John Maxwell wrote a short primer on how to stand on the shoulder of giants. He said:

Stand on the lessons of history.

His example was through Norman Cousins, who wrote, “History is a vast early warning system,” teaching us to learn by mistakes. I say we learn by successes instead.

Stand on the lessons of others.

Throughout my life, starting when I was a very young man, I’ve made it a practice to spend time with people ahead of me on the journey. Observe and ask questions of people you respect, and you’ll gain incredible lessons that you can apply to your own life.

Stand on the lessons of experience.

When you learn from others first, you gain skills in evaluating experience in order to grow. I’ve often said that experience is not the best teacher; evaluated experience is. Use what you learn from others’ experience to evaluate your own, and you’ll go farther, faster, than you would have otherwise.

With your mentors, ally's, and life itself ... what is your history, your lessons, your experience? What do you believe? Whether you are new to this teaching or have been involved with this philosophy for a while, what are you doing with your beliefs?

The words are nice to hear and read - I know, but the belief and its integration, the awakening and embodying of it is essential to the transforming and transcending or for just having a happy life

You must be willing to incarnate your theology and illuminate the world around you … that devotion will give you the will to follow through on all you are guided to do, say, and become in this life. ~Carolyn Myss, Entering the Castle

We don't have to reinvent the wheel for a prosperous life.
We don't have to hold ourselves back or have misery in our lives to learn and grow.

When it comes to the ideas of:

• Divine Love always within and available
• Using the Law of Cause and Effect to reveal all  good in your life
• The One Mind and Unity of Spirit in all life
• Limitless Power of the Universe is available to us at all times

...our belief in them is proved by our use of these ideas, conscious or unconscious.

Take it all in. Don't lose the wisdom from the ancients because it's old and maybe abused. Don't lose the wisdom of the recent as just the latest fad or what those other people believe

Look at it, smell it, listen to it, touch it. Is it loving? is it constructive? Does it support:

• Divine Love always within and available
• Using the Law of Cause and Effect to reveal all  good in your life
• The One Mind and Unity of Spirit in all life
• Limitless Power of the Universe is available to us at all times

If so, add it in, make it your own, make it work for you.

Awaken your spirit to adventure; hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; soon you will be home in a new rhythm, for your soul senses the world that awaits you.   ~John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Believe it, risk with it, love it, be it. Always remember that behind (and above!) it all is God, the biggest giant with the widest and strongest shoulders. 

As we advance through our year of awakening and continue allowing the evolutionary impulse of Spirit to work through us, let us remember and commit to an upward journey of Divine Unfoldment. Mary Shelley wrote in a preface for Frankenstein: “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”

Not the chaos of confusion, disarray, disorder, and mayhem, but the chaos of the cosmos, of the Divine, of the wisdom of the ages - an open-source of information, inspiration, and transformation.

You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you. ~Luke 17:21

Stand on the shoulders of my words and the words my words were inspired from, and the fruits where those were burgeoned and on and on till you get it, believe it, awaken to it; till you see further than ever before …and thrive!

Affirmative Incantation

Today I am lifted up and carried by the gigantic stature of that undeniable, ever-reliable Loving Intelligence that moves through me, with me, as me, and for me.

 I experience It's love like I do gravity, oxygen, magnetism, and electricity – in the result of Its power and presence in all of life.

I believe in It as I see It expressed in the beauty of nature or the eyes of a puppy or my truest love. I believe It as I hear It ringing in the sounds of the cooing of birds, the laughter of children, and the music that stirs me. I believe in It as It is disclosed in my freedoms of choice, words, thoughts, feelings, and actions. 

I believe that I Am to be guided and enlightened today, centered in the love and support of the Highest in me.

FORWARD...MARCH

 The spiral of life is upward.  Evolution carries us forward.   ~Science of Mind

Like many others, I too was struck weeping and patriotic as we stepped into a new political stance, a new national leadership, and a re-kindling of Light, here in the physical.

I am inspired to declare on this day that we step out of what we thought was a never-ending shade (as Amanda Gorman described)

...the day we step past the loss we carry

This is the day we leave behind the sea we have waded to stand tall on the land of the free and to feel safe in our home of Divine bravery where limitations are sent on their way, fears are held at bay, and peace, health, prosperity, and love are no longer delayed

If we needed a reason, an excuse, some motivation to plan, dream, envision or set our intention to the work of moving forward, one has arrived for both this nation, which Amanda Gorman described as

...striving to forge a union with purpose

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man & womyn

...and ourselves

I declare this purpose has arrived for each of us to experience where it is that we want to go forward as an individual, a family, a community, a nation, and a world with all the possibilities found in the infinite possibilities of the Universe.

We are bringing forth from beyond the horizon of our self-induced boxes of limitation and past the edges we had put around ourselves, our communities, and our movement; a transcendent growth, yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. She said...

...before we knew it

And yet always there awaiting us to reveal It

Somehow we do it

Somehow we've weathered and witnessed

a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished

As it is in this nation, so too is it in our lives - simply unfinished. We are not done, and we shall never be done. We have aligned ourselves with a teaching that emphasizes unity with God and each other, a faith that calls the world, both individually and collectively, to a higher state of consciousness and action for a life where our spiritual principles/practices like affirmative incantations, affirmative prayer, breath, contemplation, imagination, inspiration, and meditation from 20 secs to 20 mins are always available to awaken to, clothe ourselves in, and continuously experience our highest, most divine ideas choosing to think and feel, believe and reveal, declare and experience our best, most vibrant, prosperous, and succulent life.

The Law is on our side – the spiritual Law- to attract, manifest, demonstrate, compensate, mirror, reciprocate, magnetize, harmonize, and boomerang our intention, our focus, our purpose, and our glory to the right here and now.

In this year of awakening, we are called to intensify our Self-awareness, illuminate our alignment with Spirit in all our motivations, inner dialogue, and hidden beliefs; illuminate it with the Light of Divine Intelligence. We are called to awaken our willingness to observe and take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and word choices.

Self-awareness is the foundation for conscious choices, the wise imaginative ones from staying open-hearted to Universal wisdom, the Divine choices brought through our communion with this loving intelligence that Ernest Holmes describes in Can We Talk to God like this:

Consider the Spirit as a warm, pulsating, reciprocal thing. It presses against us, It flows through us. It is our intelligence. It is a great universal urge and surge. It is a warm colorful thing. It is a beautiful thing... Know that there is something more than law; an intelligence to which we may come for inspiration, for guidance, for direction; a power responding to us, a Presence pressing against us, an animation flowing through us, a light within us. 

Where do I go when the whirling dervish seems to take over in my head?...HOME

Where do I go when I have lost something, and going cray-cray finding it? ...HOME

Where do I go to keep the motivation of my passions alive when I'm frustrated about manifesting them on time?  Or have doubts, worries, and other junk?

I go Home ...to commune with the power and presence of Creation here in the Divine Matrix, where the wisdom of the One Mind occupies the body in head, heart, and gut – toes, elbows, and spleen. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, a somatic leadership coach says:

When we connect with the core energy [of the body] we contact a vast reservoir of wisdom, compassion, and intelligence that we have neglected, over three billion years of embodied knowledge of survival, adapting, social intelligence, coordinating, intuition, and reciprocity lie largely unused in us.  If we learn to listen to this life energy, and to act from it, there’s much it can teach us about living spiritual values while our feet are firmly on the ground. This somatic intelligence [the living process where neither mind nor body is separate from the other] affirms the truth of our interdependence, interconnectness, and a power that lies beyond the self. 

Though It is a living process, we must choose to get in it and take the ride. While on the ride, we shall turn away from the past, turn away from the conditions that do not serve us. This is not to bypass the conditions, not to ignore our feelings, or stock them away in some attic of the subconscious, pretending they did not happen, but to transcend them

Our teaching can be attractive to those who think they can bypass their emotions using such phrases and mantras as: 

“We are 100% responsible for our experiences” 
“Everything happens for good or for a reason” 
“You are exactly where you are supposed to be”

Though these statements are true, they become heartless platitudes; unhelpful, unsupported, dis-empowering spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks. As we march forward past the breach of this first month of 2021, let us not deny the complex nature of our lives and of our Universe, let us not deny we played a role in what manifests. 

We all have unconscious patterns and beliefs that we let go wild with our thought choices; they may be unconscious or subconscious, but they are not out of reach. We can face them and...

• process the emotions through our systems
• learn from them and re-calibrate our thinking
• awaken our factory-setting perspective from the depths of our core
• reveal and declare the Truth of who we are by drowning the head voice with the heart, responding instead of reacting, and changing those beliefs that are in our way to the ones that lead the way

…if you want to live a more spiritual life, live a more human life. Be more truly madly deeply human.   ~Jeff Brown, Grounded Spirituality 

I know I have some of that to work to do on myself. Join me and be not afraid! By constantly and consistently expanding our awareness and understanding that too many of us swim in some form of privileged 'you against me' mentality, or victim-hood, systemic racism, sexism, ageism, and other isms perspective, and then communing with the Divine within more often than the brain within, we will be able to step up, lean in, do the mental work in brain, heart, and gut. Here are your marching orders:

This is the...

day ... we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we're brave enough to see it
If only we're brave enough to be it

Be brave enough to be It ... to be the highest you can be and go forward....always forward. You've got the strength of the powers of creation behind you to get through it, get past it, and manifest your best life yet. 

Believe It, Work It, Be It, Live It

I'll be joining you....let's go forward... and march!

Affirmative Incantation

inspired by St. Teresa of Avila

The Divine has a body on earth...mine:

Hands that are mine and feet that are mine.

Eyes of mine from which It looks out,

And ears of mine with which It hears the cry, listens for its meaning, and begins the healing.

With my feet, Divine’s compassion to the world goes about the movement of doing good;

And with my hand to my heart, It blesses as I answer the call of the Divine urge to be in joyous song.

Today I use these hands to take out the trash of my past

Today I use these feet to walk away from the dump of my junk

Today I use these ears to hear the sounds of forgiveness and peace in my mind

Today I use these eyes to see the best in me, the Highest in me....and in all who surround me.

Today I use this mind and heart to know gratitude and grace flows freely within me

And today I use all of the Divine in my body to be the holistic harbinger of prosperity for all parts of my life

I am the ever-evolving living embodiment of Divine Love and Intelligence and I use It every day and spread It around the world in every way.

PEACE IN OUR HEARTS

Today I want to highlight Dr. King's dedication to nonviolent activism; protesting injustice with a call for peace and unity, oneness, and prosperity for all. Influenced by Yeshua, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Howard Thurman and others, he knew that the power of peace could move what seemed immovable, teach those who seemed unteachable, bring light where there is darkness, and change this nation and the world.

This morning we will be diving into Peace In Our Hearts. We are bigger than any occurrence or condition or any low vibrational frequencies like division, doubt, fear, or stress. We are in a field of infinite possibilities that react to our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.  What energy/vibration are you in?  What energy/vibration do you want to be in? 

Our optimal job is to turn away from the reaction of what is not peaceful and step into intention and creation of what is peaceful. Are you ready to let go of the fear, anger, uncertainty, and step into your clarity, understanding, certainty, love, and peace?

We can be the Light in the darkness by switching on the God switch. This is not some religious thing. It is as simple as:

How do you start your day in mind, body, soul,

thoughts, feelings, spiritual practice, and food?

How do you end your day?

Peace out there starts with peace inside you. Through our unity in the One and our awareness and awakening with our Highest Self, we not only bring peace in our hearts but become an example to others, rising the vibration throughout the world.

Let's start with our bodies. 

Being mindful of our bodies is essential to the expression of our attitudes, perspectives, and perceptions, and thus our beliefs and experiences. 

Are you all collapsed...shoulders slumped, spine contracted? 

Are you lifting up, doing your wonder woman pose, and deep breathwork?

Remember the spiritual practice of the breath is a release, refresh, and a reboot to mind and body. It is the precursor to the song in your heart revealing itself, illuminating your God-Light into your world and beyond.

Language and communication is important, so focus on what you want to expand. Self-talk is powerful. Choose yours wisely ...it's not about what you don't want....it's about what you want! As Carl Jung reminds us, “What you resist, persists.” So do not resist the negative, re-frame it to surrender to the positive. Life does not need to just be about the good vs. bad. It's about what you declare you are going to reveal in your life or the life of our nation.

Plug-In To What Nourishes You

Spiritual Practice, Community
Self Care – mentally and physically
Varying the sensory input - music, reading, etc.
Moving your body - motion creates emotion and emotion creates attitude, perception, and perspective. Is yours on strife and fear or peace, health and prosperity.

There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why and how [IT] rules and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules.  ~Gandhi

That ruling power is in you....is you.

INTEGRITY/COURAGE

Dr. King wrote:

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

Courage is the ability to do what is in your heart. 'Courage' comes from the Latin, 'cor,' meaning heart and spirit. We open our heart to trust the inner wisdom. The inner wisdom comes from Spirit, the Universal Intelligence. With integrity to our spiritual practices and courageousness in using the revelations from our spiritual practices, we can stand on the Principle of Love and Law. The unconditional love of the Divine and the Law that provides as we believe. 

BELIEVING

Gandhi asked...

...is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth Truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, light. ...love. ... the supreme Good. ...[not] merely satisf[ying] the intellect ...[but] rul[ing] the heart and transform[ing] it. ...express[ing] ...in every smallest act.... This can only be done through a definite realization, more real than the five senses can ever produce.

Peace is a possibility right now. 

Believing that is step one. Keep peace in mind everywhere you are. Let us embody what St. Francis declared:

I AM an instrument of Divine peace:

     where there is hatred, I shall sow love;

     where there is injury, pardon;

     where there is doubt, faith;

     where there is despair, hope;

     where there is darkness, light;

     where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Love, I now declare

That I shall not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

     to be understood as to understand,

     to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that I receive,

It is in pardoning that I am pardoned,

And so I forgive all

And allow all hate, fear, anger, disappointment, and victim-hood 

To be released from my heart and die from my experience

As I reveal my eternal life of love, peace, honor, justice, respect, kindness, and grace. 

You probably won't be able to curb every idea that enters your head, but by watching your actions, thoughts, character, and habits, you can always decide if you will make a home for it. 

On January 30th, we begin the 64 day Season for Nonviolence, an educational and grassroots campaign dedicated to the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi who believed in the power of truth and possibility — that a person of conscience could awaken others by refusing to go along with existing injustice and by pointing out more just and workable alternatives. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. applied Gandhian principles to the movement for civil rights.

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. ~Nikola Tesla 

 Peace begins within and radiates outwardly. Peace in the land starts with the individual. There is no peace in the nation without peace in each of our hearts. 

Get in the wave. Weep, rage, if you must...but then breathe, and sing. Plug-in, nourish, and give peace a chance...

Affirmative Incantation

Today I begin to use the Power within like I have never done before, to experience the Good that God is.

I know who I am – an individualized force of the creative Intelligence of All. I AM empowered by the Light and Wisdom of The Thing Itself...Spirit, Source, Divine Intelligence. I follow that Truth with the awareness that my thought is creative... thoughts are things. And so I sow the seeds of my joyous life with these words today. I move now as an outlet for the Universe to work with me, for me, by me, and through me, to make my life a living demonstration of Its greatest example.

So here I Am, Universe. Here I speak my Word, Spirit. Here I Am using my mind, heart, soul, brain, and gut to talk to you, declare as you, reveal through you a life being lived fully, with succulence, joy, grace, peace, and courage. I surround myself with love, kindness, wisdom, creativity, and vitality; nurturing my body, mind, and soul with goodness, and laughter.

Today I feed my consciousness with the nutrition of Divine Love and sing out with success!