PENETRATING INTELLIGENCE

A Buddhist monk strode into a Zen pizza parlor and said, "Make me a slice with everything." When he got his order, he gave the proprietor a $20 bill, which the guy thanked him for, pocketed and started to walk away. "Hey," asked the monk, "where's my change?" The owner turned back and said, "Change, my friend...must come from within." 

Can We Talk to God?

Neale Donald Walsch made a career out of his conversations and Ernest Holmes wrote a book with that title based on a 1934 lecture, where he teaches the Law of Cause and Effect and affirmative prayer, what he coined as Spiritual Mind Treatment. I talk about it all the time...affirmative prayer and other spiritual practices.

Does It (God or whatever you like to call It) Talk Back?

Better yet, does It start the conversation?

Lately, I've been starting our Sunday celebration with a version of this affirmation:

I am an irresistible magnet, with the power to attract unto myself everything that I divinely desire, according to the thoughts, feelings and mental pictures I constantly entertain and radiate.  I am the center of my Universe.  I have the power to create whatever I mentally choose and accept.  I begin choosing and mentally accepting the highest and best in life.  I now choose lavish abundance for myself and for all mankind.  This is a rich friendly Universe and I accept its riches and hospitality now!!!  ~Vetura Papke

We're not only attracting experiences into our lives through the Law of Cause and Effect and other spiritual laws, we are also attracting wisdom that penetrates our mind and consciousness with ideas, tactics, answers and, sometimes, additional questions that take us deeper into solutions. 

How do we penetrate our own mind? We do it every day with our thoughts and feelings. We can do it so well, we are so smart that many times we talk ourselves out of our success and other times heal ourselves of dis-ease.

The human mind is really more of a process. It is not a completed thing, like an arm or leg, but a relationship and a process.   ~Jane Roberts, The Nature of Personal Reality 

Part of that process is the relationship and conversation that exists between the solar plexus -the gut- and the third eye -the brain. Now I understand that the head brain reigns supreme, but the gut is the older. Before you had a neo-cortex or the frontal lobes, you only had the gut and instincts to guide you. The "gut" or enteric nervous system consists of sheaths of neurons embedded in the walls of the long tube of our alimentary canal, which measures from the esophagus to the anus. It contains some 100 million neurons, more than in the spinal cord or peripheral nervous system, and uses more than 30 neurotransmitters, just like the brain. In addition, 95 percent of serotonin, the hormone and neurotransmitter that regulates mood and social behavior, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory, and sexual desire and function, is found in the bowels. The primary visceral nerve, the vagus, carries information from the gut to the brain and not the other way around; electrical stimulation of which has been used as a treatment for depression.

How do we allow Divine Intelligence to penetrate our conscious and subconscious mind? By being open and aware of what Steve Jobs has called that which is "more powerful than intellect." It is a sacred gift from the Universe.

My brain is only a receiver. In the universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration.    ~Nikola Tesla

Inspiration comes from the Latin, tueri, meaning to guard or to protect. The Hindus refer to as the Akashic River of Knowledge as inspiration. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake refers to inspiration as the morphic fields where all information floats and Malcom Glaldwell, in his book, "Blink," talks about “the power of thinking without thinking.”

Cracking The Intuition Code

I define intuition as the subtle knowing without ever having any idea why you know it. It's different from thinking, it's different from logic or analysis ... It's a knowing without knowing. ~Sophy Burnham, The Art of Intuition

It's a flooding of the brain with Divine penetrating intelligence, a “direct messenger of the soul” per Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves."

We all have hunches, sudden insights, that gut feeling or butterflies in the stomach. It is something which is not to be feared that you will become Doctor Faustus and make a deal with the Devil by listening and adhering to them. Those would be negative energy thoughts and easy to differentiate. O that you somehow are heeding the call of the mythological Sirens, luring you to crash and burn with their enchanting songs like sailors getting shipwrecked on the rocky coast of their island. Those will be destructive voices and ideas coming from your scared ego, lack and limitation self-talk or judgments masquerading as intuition. . We also do not need to buy into the judgment, prejudices or biases that rear their ugly head masking as intuition. In her book, "The Art of Intuition," Sophy Burnham tells a story about two women waiting in a doctor's office. Joanne, a brilliant journalist (an observer of fact) saw that the other waiting patient seemed to be an unkempt, disreputable-looking woman, the more off-putting for having the shadow of a dark mustache. She shuddered at the idea of talking to this woman. But time passed and boredom was setting in and they fell into a conversation. Joanne was surprised to find out the woman was a nuclear physicist and a captivating conversationalist. She mistook intuition for her judgments, prejudices and biases.

When any of those show up, evaluate their integrity - is it destructive? judgmental? bias-ridden? fear-induced? prejudicial? If so, ignore them or over-ride them with Truth, and tell them to take a hike. Take over and allow your intellect to discount them as the fear or judgment-centered voice they are.

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn’t nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.   ~Anne Lamott

Intuition is usually subtle and many times makes no sense. The key is of course, to stop and listen to that inner voice and the sensations of your body. What do you perceive is going on, being said, letting you know?

If courage is the penetration of mind through the fear which seems to overwhelm us then we can think of calmness as the penetration of mind through the anxieties which confront us, even including anger. …. Our mind need not be always passive; always like a sponge. …. If we don’t often use our mind this way we gain no strength with it—we get flabby.  ~The Zennist

How To Cultivate Our Intuition

1) Tune in and raise your vibration and take time for solitude. Solitude is a practice that does not equate to being alone, but to being at One with the energy and Light of the Divine.

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

This energy, frequency and vibration is the universal power, as First Cause (initiator of  creation), is the original broadcasting station, extending Its wisdom out into all of Its creation.

2) Listen, allow, recognize and act. Allow your Spidey-sense to emerge as you pay attention to the goosebumps, the tingling in the scalp, the shudders, icky feelings or words you hear inform you.

3) Observe, be in the moment and not in a life drowned in rote.

4) Connect deeply to your feelings and emotions and those of others. This is not to indulge, soak or become the victim, but to listen to the messages, work through them and then let them go.

5) Visioning – directly or indirectly. Go inward, ask, journal your thoughts. Talk to your higher self on purpose. Here's an exercise:  focus on an event and pay attention to the thoughts that emerge while in contemplation. Write down in a 'stream of consciousness' mode what came to you. 

6) Pay attention to your dreams. Your subconscious mind is talking to you. Learn what that might be. 

7) Rest, meditate, sit in nature. Can't say it enough. And when you do, say to yourself, affirmations such as these:

I Am Intuitive, I Am Knowing

I Am Alive In The Now and Connected To My True Path And Purpose

True To Myself, I Am Connected To My Own Inner Vision

My Insight Is Strong and Can Be Trusted

I Have Strong Instincts From My Intuitive Self and I Am Listening

I Am Clearly Connected And Step Firmly Into the Unlimited Possibilities, Bringing Them Into My Reality Right Now

It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner.   ~Jonas Salk

Connect with your “partner in enlightenment;” call it God, Source, Consciousness, Wise One, Tao, Gnosis, Qi, Source, Muse...whatever. Open your gut and allow its Penetrating Intelligence to call you to your best and...

Listen for the nuggets of wisdom to bust through soar and zoom.

Affirmation

I have a powerful, creative and constructive mental acuity with  the acumen to accurately activate and accentuate the source of Divine Light in my life. 

I keep my mind alert and sharp, listening to my inner self and downloading the answers I require. 

I am savvy with the details that manifest exciting, love-filled experiences and I allow them to joyously ring loud and clear in my every thought, feeling and belief. 

I have the wit to speak my word with bold, brave, sassy, succulent and enlightened clarity. 

Perceiving and retrieving the brilliance of Divine Intelligence, I  perfectly conceive the best ideas and achieve the deepest insight; receiving great peace, prosperity, joyous love and abundant health in my life.

Your Brain On God

We are all storytellers ... when we pray or even think, we are telling the Law our story

What story do you want to tell?

A Cherokee elder is teaching his grandchildren about life and says, "a fight is going on inside of me it is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, pride and superiority … lies, lies, lies.

The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion,faith and Truth.

This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too," the elder said to the wide-eyed kids. The grandkids thought about it for a while and then one of them asked "which wolf will win?"

"The one I feed," the old Cherokee answered, “the one I feed.”

What are you feeding your mind?

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. ~Thoreau

Sympathy with Intelligence? That's with God, Spirit....

In the book, HOW GOD CHANGES YOUR BRAIN, Andrew Newberg MD and Mark Robert Waldman talk about the science of faith. Using our brain's plasticity, we can change our lives through faith, meditation, prayer and other spiritual practices. The reasons for this change come through our desire, focus, conscious regulation of breath, and posture/body movements. The mechanism for change is faith. It is a practice that stops you from ruminating or focusing on fear and/or anger. Meditation or prayer and other spiritual practices are the opposite of rumination and cause your brain to change.

You may say, "hey, Jay, I don't always have time to meditate or pray and my mind is tired from a full and busy morning at work." Or you may not have any spiritual practice at all. Then just take a moment and Breathe; breath replenishes neural energy and gives you a coffee-like boost.

I'm sure most of you have heard of Jill Bolte Taylor. Ms. Taylor is a Harvard-trained neuro-anatomist who experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain in 1996, at the age of 37. She lost judgment, critical analysis, sense of past and future and was finding herself existing just in now, using her right hemisphere. She wrote"

...and for me it was a total experience of peacefulness and euphoria. ... "The Blue Sky is Always There", and to me the blue sky is the consciousness of the right hemisphere. And then the clouds come in, which is the consciousness of the left hemisphere and the verbiage and it blocks our ability to see the blue sky, but the blue sky is always still there. And to me that's what going on with our consciousness. We always have that blue sky, that right hemisphere experience of euphoria is at the essence of what we are. You always have the option, moment, by moment, of saying in this moment, I'm going to sit back, I'm going to look at the world around me. I'm going to escape all the things that I'm thinking about. And I am just going to pay attention to how the air feels, the temperature of the air, my breath... Look at the colors in the field around me, stop thinking and analyzing everything that is going on in your left hemisphere; all the jargon. ...consciously choose to have that experience at any moment. …. we are biologically designed to have this experience of feeling at one with all that is.

You can watch her TED Talk to learn more. And she has written a book on the experience, as well.

With your brain on God, the chemicals zapping around lowers anxiety and depression and relaxes you; it lights you up like the sun. I don't want to get into the electro-chemical descriptions of it all, but suffice it to say, different hormones and the like are excreted on a moment-by-moment basis, when you daily use spiritual practices. And I don't mean just prayer or meditative modalities. What lights you up in positive way? What music, reading, affirmations, walking the beach or the mountains, etc. are you including in your life on a daily basis? And if not on a daily basis, why not? There's enough junk floating around in your head that gets in your way, why do we not set ourselves up for greater success by setting a mental experience, along with goals and other success tools?

Some of you might ask, "Do you need God to do all this?" "God," it's just a term/name for the energy that surrounds us. But most importantly, it is an energy or frequency or vibration that we surround ourselves with. The breath, the music, the animal friend we hang out with, enjoying he company of our children, reading inspiring words, sitting on the porch and watching the sunset, etc. It is the consciousness of Universe being allowed to step in and refresh the brain and thus the body, spirit, et al. Call it what you will, the name is irrelevant. But if you are okay with the term 'God,' realize that that word is a noun....and a verb....and an adjective.

In the book, How God Changes Your Brain, they list five fundamental neurological truths that coincide with New Thought:
1-Your thoughts clearly affect the neurological functioning of your body
2-Optimism is essential for maintaining a healthy brain
3-Positive thoughts neurologically suppress negative thoughts (conscious optimal ones even more)
4-When you change the way you think , you begin to change your outward circumstances
5-Consciousness, reality, your mind, and your spiritual beliefs are profoundly interconnected and inseparable from the  functioning of your brain

Let's all get in the Zone everyday...the zone of Spirit in our lives. Stay interested, be in wonderment, use your imagination, have smiles at the ready, release anxiety in your mind and body with yawns, and increase your playfulness. You will see that when your perception changes...reality bends! Yes, negative experiences may occur, but how you deal with it will change; gratitude will step in quicker, your neutrality to the negative condition will rise up and free you from emotional blockages in wisdom and action . You will still have compassion for yourself and others' plights in the moment, but you will react from strength not weakness and love not fear.

Affirmation
I AM IN  UNITY WITH THE DIVINE!
Peace surrounds me. Peace upholds me.  Peace is what I surrender to, with which I inhale, and from which I begin and end my day. Peace is where I flow from and what I travel with.  In me is embedded an attitude of peace, a bias of peace, a philosophy of peace, and a mind set in peace.                       
LOVE, ACCORD, AND FRIENDSHIP ARE MINE!

Planned Obsolesence

Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern dress - The Conclusion

Conclusion

Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive![1]

So now we have come to the point of answering the query posed: Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern dress? And the answer must be yes ... and no.

Yes, it is new: New Thought gathered what had been scattered, brought order from what was chaos, and codified what had been described for millennia by various sects, parties, movements and religions as the Truth – all to bring at-one-ment to the world without the riddles, secrets, mysteries, prejudices, or tales that have too many times confused, confounded, and damaged the spirits and lives of Humanity and, ultimately, the rest of Nature on this planet. New Thought is the culmination, the best practices, you might say, of Ancient Wisdom.

And no, it is not new: New Thought, much like our relationship to God, is an individualization of what we may call Ancient Wisdom. The Truth about how the Universe works, though Ancient, is always reNEWed. Since we live within a creative energy, creating individualizations of Itself to use a creative medium to live a Life of Good, it is an always emerging and evolving journey, always a Now proposition.

This distinction between new and old matters, and orients us within our learning – and it also matters not at all. I believe there never was a secret and the answer was and is always here, not kept from us. This Truth, this Divine Intelligence and Power were never hidden from us – except by ourselves – and have always been available. How we discover (or remember) the Truth and embody it, live by and through it and Be it, consciously and consistently, is the challenge of the ages, old and new. The Universe calls, listens, and answers, but as long as generations refuse to hear and hold on to this Truth, they are destined to require a “new” way to learn to use that which was given at birth. The Over-Soul, as Emerson called it, that Thing Itself which we are in unity with, individualizing and personalizing as the various forms of beings in existence, acts through Love and Law, to have us be Self-Reliant, as Emerson said, and use a Creative Process, as Troward described, to apply a Science of Mind and Mental Healing, the focus of Quimby and Hopkins, for a “life triumphant over loss, pain, sickness, poverty, sin, and [yes, even] death, and the joy that comes from living the Christ [Consciousness] Life.”

New Thought is the best of Ancient Wisdoms spoken in a modern way. It is the truth of truths of how the Universe works, why we are in it and how to be in it for a fulfilling life. The major influences of the influencers – Emerson, Troward, Quimby and Hopkins – were the “ancient” and the not so ancient thinkers that preceded them. Their writings inspired New Thought’s influencers to come up with their individualized version of an amalgamation of the Truths from Eastern and Western philosophies and traditions. It is a New Thought because of these amalgamations of the Ancient Wisdoms into modern verbiage. And yet we must always stay open to optimization by allowing a continuous revealing of this Absolute through current socio-political-cultural rhythms and needs. When the student is ready, the Teacher arrives.

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[1] Albert Einstein

[2] High Mysticism, Emma Curtis Hopkins