The Defining Moment

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

 - Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

 I have some questions for you:

How do you define you?

What is the definition of you?

Who or what do you let define you?

Are you defined by your past ... your mother ... your mate? Or maybe by your friends or your career or job?

Perhaps you are like Sydney Carton in A TALE OF TWO CITIES; the lazy, alcoholic attorney who can't muster any interest in his own life until his unrequited love for Lucie Manette inspires him to become a selfless martyr where, at the end of the novel, he disguises himself as a wanted man (her fiance) and takes the rap for him, paying the ultimate price with death by guillotine; thus enabling the happiness of his beloved Lucie and ensuring his own redemptive immortality and resurrected life meaning? 

ie. Are you living a life of sacrifice?

Maybe you have defined yourself by some or many of these things before: your profession, others opinions, your hopes and dreams?

I have:

There have been times in my life where I have put myself second unnecessarily and too often. I have allowed my talents, abilities, profession, marital status, checkbook status, or social status define me.

Maybe not verbally, but, worse, internally.

But no more!!! 

And I want you to join me!  So I repeat the question: 

How do you define you?

First off, let's define definition -

It is an act of; the formal proclamation of one's being, a statement expressing the essential nature of something, the action or process of stating the meaning of a word or word group or one's life, the action or the power of describing, explaining, or making clear; or a clarity of the visual presentation, outline or detail

Poet and civil rights advocate, Audre Lorde said, 

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

She has been quoted self-defining herself as a black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet. So, she defines herself by her race, sexuality, procreation, engagement in activism and equality, profession and art - what she does, her actions.

Ms. Lorde defines herself by what Thomas Jefferson said:

Do you want to know who you are?
Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.

So, what actions are you taking? What thoughts are you thinking or will think? Is tomorrow just going to be another day, Scarlett?

Another day where lack overrides prosperity?

Fear overrides love?

Or will faith override fear?

Truth override fact?

We all have volition. We get to choose what and which emotions, states of mind, and opinions we're going to have. We get to decide which emotional triggers are allowed to invade our lives and which ones will fade and vanish from our lives, and what or which reactions we are going to have to fact number x, y or z.

We get to choose!

Second definition is the ostensive definition:

A definition accomplished by exhibiting and characterizing
 the thing to be defined.

If everyone was blind, how would you be described? 

-Brianna West, Thought Catalogue

In a moment, I want you to close your eyes and...

Feel your face … 

... the texture, the lines - is it a frown or smile?

Stressed or joyous?

Listen to (not just hear) your voice. ...

... your tone - is it stressed or joyous?

Feel your energy ...

... surrounded by happy, sad, content, 

stressed, at ease, at peace?

Try it!

Do you sense a big fat wall or lie going on?

What energy do you give off?

Does the room clear when you enter it

or are people attracted to the energy you exude?

Brianna went on to say:

You are not your hair color. You are not your choice of clothing. You’re not your height, weight or job or degree of education. More importantly, you’re not your mistakes. You’re not defined by the things that make you human, otherwise known to some as “flaws.” The physical are just descriptors that make you easier to identify by others (short tall young old brown hair dyed hair no hair), they don’t define who you are.

And this is my favorite part:

You are whatever touches your soul more deeply than anything. You are who you love. You are the music that makes you cry. You are the daydreams your mind trails off to. You are your favorite food. You are your deepest desires. You are what you want to bring to the world. You are the silly jokes that make you laugh. You are how you treat other people, especially people who don’t and can’t do anything for you in return. You are anything and everything that touches you and changes you from your core.

Our third definition is the contextual definition

A definition in which the meaning of a word, expression, or symbol is partly or wholly determined by defining the meaning of a larger expression containing the definiendum.

So, let's put this into context … the larger expression of you and I is commonly referred to as God!

Ernest Holmes calls God:

The Power that creates everything, that gives life to everything.

So in a contextual definition of you and me, we are creators
 … we are artists.

Edgar Allan Poe said:

It is almost something that can't be put into words. Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.'

You see, you and I are the ultimate Artists of our lives. What we perceive we can achieve. Our thoughts become things. Our beliefs flavor every experience we have, whether we call them good, bad, positive, negative, wanted or not wanted.

What do you believe?

The fourth is about our depth of focus

It is the range of distances of the image measured along the axis of the device throughout which the image has acceptable sharpness.
You can say that it is the range of distance where our focus on our perfection is sharp. That is a mental and optical reference.
The human eye can change focus from distance infinity to 7 cm from the eye in 350 milliseconds. Milliseconds! Well, we also have that same capacity, mentally, to change our focus, as well.

I define myself by everything that I love, everything I can create, everything that I can imagine. 

- Stedman Graham

What are you focusing on?

It's time to learn to turn off the noise; the chaos of the city, of work, and of life. Put down the paper, close People Magazine, turn off the news and look into the eyes of your pet, your child, your lover, your friend.
It is there you will see, feel, reveal that which defines you.

Dr. Holmes in This Thing Called You says:

Not a person lives does not at some time in life sense this inward Presence, this vision of the Divine which presses against us. It is seeking entrance through our thoughts.

We must open the door of our consciousness

and permit It to enter.

Our fifth definition is the connotative definition

It is a statement of the equivalence of connotation between the defined term and another expression.

It is our thoughts:  

        what we think about our selves 
or what we accept about what others might say

Dr. Holmes wrote:

Thoughts often repeated form patterns in mind which automatically repeat themselves.

So, what is going on in your self talk?

"I can't do nothing."

"I can do anything."

"I am a failure."

                                                       or

"I express limitless possibilities

because there are limitless possibilities

and I am of the ultimate Artist, the ultimate Creator,

thus I am the Artist,

I am the Creator of my experiences."

In Don Miguel Ruiz's THE FOUR AGREEMENT, the second and third agreements are:  

Don't take anything personally and don't make assumptions.

Don't take anything personally about what others say about you, think about you, write about you, or you have even done yourself.Don't like how you handled something or said something? Yeah, take responsibility....but suffer, beat yourself up for it?

Forget it!

Repair the damage and don't ever do it again.

Love Only - Forgive Everything

Remember Who You Are!

Don't assume! Find out! 

Don't poison your mind with supposed facts, including the news, find out ... ask ... get the truth with a little t and know the Truth with the big T.

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

                            ― Eckhart Tolle

          A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

The sixth and final definition is the genetic definition
which indicates how that to which a word or expression refers, comes into existence.

You don't have to achieve it  - a life of meaning, a life of definition, or a defining moment - like Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities did or the way so famously made by Jesus of Nazareth – by sacrificing your life. You can have it now by sacrificing the old you that no longer serves your greatest good, that you used or maybe abused to define you before and live like the Artist that you are, like the Creator that you are.

You see, you are unique!

There were 200-300 million sperm in competition to fertilize the one egg that was available in one of the two fallopian tubes in your mother to start the process of reproduction and the making of your body - this vehicle that is temporarily holding the real you, the definition of You. 

200-300 million!

And that sperm not only fought for its place in the cue, it traveled the equivalent to its size, a distance of 40 miles to reach its destination.

Forty miles!

That is some power. That is some kind of uniqueness that you and I are.

It is the same Power that makes the planets, grows the trees, whips up the wind, works the 100 trillion cells that makes up your body. Now the saying that you rejuvenate your entire cell system every 7 - 10 years is a misnomer. But many or our cells are constantly regenerating themselves – much of your body is younger than the number of candles on your birthday cake. 

This is power and this Power is in you,

works through you,

acts as you ... 

is YOU.

Take it, grasp it, absorb it...

BE IT.

Creation's gold mine is in you. The key is deliberate intention. Whatever your dream may be at this moment, identify it. If you cannot define your desire, it can never become a reality. 

- Mary Manin Morrissey

They say don't sweat the big stuff...

and people ask how, how do I do that?

Well, by concentrating on ... 

living in and being of the little stuff … 

the basic stuff … 

which is the True big stuff.

Allow me to, as Jarvis Lorry did for Dr. Manette in the beginning of A TALE OF TWO CITIES, give you this message:

Recalled to Life.

I am recalling you to a life deserved, a life birthed to, a life au natural (with or without clothing); a life imbued with, soaking in, surrounded by, created from, living as, and Being One with which you are … 

With which you are … 

A life that defines You

Charles Dickens' A TALE OF TWO CITIES ends with this, from the narrator:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

Let us end with this:

Please repeat:

Today I proclaim my Divine inheritance...

I am rich with the richness of Source...

I am strong with the power of Light...

I am guided by the wisdom of Spirit...

I am held in the goodness of God, today.

If you must define yourself, make that your definition. And watch those “synchronicities”, those “miracles” that seem to just show up when things are going great .... show up even more.

LOVE ONLY - FORGIVE EVERYTHING

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!

Namaste!

I Live a Life of Victorious Goddness and Prosperity!

I live a life of victorious goodness and prosperity!

In ancient times, palm branches signified goodness and victory. The Jews use this during the holiday of Sukkot to represent part of the struggle of the Israelites on their 40 year journey out of Egypt (used palm fronds to build housing, etc.) and to thank God for a good Summer abundance and to say, 'hey, don't forget next year'.

Today, the Christians celebrate Palm Sunday. The day Jesus entered the City of Jerusalem on a donkey (which represents peace). He was greeted not so much as the spiritual leader who taught them the way to think...bringing the heart and mind together and the innate divinity in all to the forefront...you know...“the kingdom of heaven is within” and the “we reap what we sow” stuff that are two major tenets of our teaching.

The people also looked to him as a potential political leader who would save them from the Roman rule. The cries of Hosanna mean 'save now'.

Jesus showed up to show the people how to save themselves from themselves....from the perception of less than, the missing the mark, the sin, you might say, of self-doubt, the ignorance of fear, and the dis-ease of shame, blame and guilt.

Earlier, Moses was around to illustrate the Power of God, the respect and love that is deserved for this singular Divine entity, this Creative Intelligence that is Allness, everywhere and with everyone – Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Republican. All the mystics over the centuries spoke up to show that we are Spirit infused. And that this Divine, love-filled Source is ours to use and be one with. 

 

Today, I want this to be a symbol for all of us to have the courage and tenacity to tell the world, when 'negative commands of a culture of fear” show up in the media, conversation and mind... to get lost. I am not telling you to ignore the facts or the experiences going on in the world and your life that aren't so nice, but to learn to transcend them. The perspective of not ignoring your pains, just not absorbing them is a choice you can make.Take action in body through your intention of Mind, supported by the love of life.

In the book “The Heart-Mind Matrix”, Joseph Pearce discusses how the heart can teach the mind new ways to think, especially in the midst of chaos. In the forward, Dr. Robert Sardello, co-founder of the School of Spiritual Psychology wrote,

“The Self expresses the Universal through the heart and the individual aspect of things through the Mind.” In gestation, the brain is developed with neurons, through what is called the neural tube, with mitochondria cells that come from the heart. There is a physical connection there from day one of our physical development.

I urge you to continuously loop the head with the heart, the Mind with the Spirit, the calculating intellect with the engine of feeling, and bring conscious victorious goodness into your life.

Then share it with the world, so that love and peace spreads, overwhelms and prevails.

Who Are YOU?

In the immortal words of Pete Townsend:

            Who are you? Who, who, who, who?

The science of CSI might analyze your DNA, hair, blood, shoe treads, fabric fibers, etc. with all kinds of chemicals, scopes, spectrums of light to discover your identity.

But think about it....without benefit of any of that science:

Who are you?

Really!

                        

Are you your name .... your profession? 

The plumber ... the artist ... the CEO?          

Is your 'who' tied up in your 'what' identity:

        The funny guy....the nasty neighbor...      

        ...the realtor lady....the son of so and so...

            ...the nice guy.......the smart person?

What? ... Who?

Ernest Holmes says in THE SCIENCE OF MIND:

There is a Universal Mind, Spirit, Intelligence, that is the origin of everything:  It is First Cause. It is God. This Universal life and Energy finds an outlet in and through all that is energized, and through everything that lives.

God finds an outlet in and through all that is energized, through everything that lives.

That’s YOU:  you are that outlet/avenue through which the Source of all, that Infinite Wisdom must come out and express Itself, reveal Itself, BE Itself ... 

It is in you.

It wants to do it through you, it needs to do it...

           

            ...creative energy is not to be contained

                             

It must become!

I challenge you to be transformed and used!

Emerson said:

Every man is a doorway through which the Infinite passes into the finite, through which God becomes man, through which the Universal becomes individual.

You are the doorway, you are the outlet, you are the individual that the Universal becomes....

                                   YOU

...that Creative Energy, the Source of All, the Divine Intelligence - whatever you want to call It....

(it doesn’t matter, God doesn’t care the term)

It is within YOU

There is a creative energy, the Creative Energy, within you every moment of every day....

It is that divine spark - as Robert Browning called it -

that wants to experience life through you, for you, as you, with you.

*Our only job is to allow it to reveal Itself*

Because when we do, a greater and more prosperous, loving experience is present!

That’s why you are here and what you are here to do with who you are. And when you are to do this is Now.

And what do you do this with?

YOUR MIND

Your mind is an outlet through which the creative intelligence of the universe seeks fulfillment. 
                                           Dr. Ernest Holmes

The Universal Creative Intelligence, ever-present and ever-available within...

                       ...seeks fulfillment through you...

                                       ...using your Mind....

                                              ...your thoughts...

                                            ...your beliefs.

Jesus of Nazareth spoke of it over two thousand years ago:  The kingdom of Heaven is within...

                  

The Kingdom of Heaven...
                                       God...
                                                the Source...
                           the Divine Intelligence is within.

He also said:  It is done unto you as you believe.

I repeat, it is done unto you as you believe. 

Get it?

And how does that make you feel?

                                   

                                      ...responsible?

                                      ...empowered?

 

Beliefs have consequences

Your mind, as Dr. Holmes said, is the feeding ground for those beliefs.

                So, what are you feeding your Mind?

Which who’s, what what’s and which when’s are you feeding your mind about:  
                                       your bank account...

                  ...the quality of your relationships?

                                                  ...your health?

                    ...your work / creative expression?

Understand that God may be the Great Original Author....

                               

                   ....but you get to write your story.

Be it as Xena the Warrior Princess, Jay Gatsby, Atticus Finch, Jane Eyre or whatever - you get to pick the character traits.

            You get to decide whether life is to be lived like a character in a Stephen King novel or a Dan Brown conspiracy-filled book or a story by John Steinbeck, whatever...

It is you who gets to write the story...

                                                         
And it is done through your thoughts and beliefs of who and what you are, the words you say to Yourself in yourself as yourself.

14th Century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart wrote:

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made...and let God be God in you.

In you....to use the power the Creative Intelligence / the Original Author gave you:

               ...to stop the bullet of pain, disappointment, fear, anxiety or worry and replace it with laughter, faith, understanding, love and peace

                  ...to reach tall buildings by forming mental patterns of prosperity, passion, vibrancy, compassion and fulfilling creativity

      ... mental patterns that turn into mental habits / beliefs which then automatically reproduce themselves into your experience.

You don’t have to change WHO YOU ARE - 

you already are It!

You don’t have to will, wish, hope, long for, or even pray for it to be so, for as you believe, so shall you conceive and receive.

You are a creative being here to use a creative power operating through, for and upon your beliefs - your who’s and what’s.

You may be thinking to yourself, “that’s all nice but sometimes I don’t feel worthy...I've made some bad choices, brought up in a lousy environment, etc.

  

I tell you that matters not.

The past is done.

You will always be worthy 

because God doesn’t make junk...

People make junk

Carl Jung wrote:

Even the enlightened person remains what he is, and is never more than his own limited ego before the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable boundaries, who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the earth and vast as the sky.

Put your human ego, your bloated nothingness (thank you Emerson) aside and get back to Who You are....     

            

It does not matter where you think you were, who you think you were or what you think you were...

There is a great story about a four-year-old child asked to be alone in the nursery for a moment with her newborn sibling. After some trepidation, the parents agreed but switched on the nursery intercom just to be safe. They left the room and went to where one of the speakers were for the baby intercom system and listened. Back in the room, the older sister gently leaned over the newborn and whispered, almost like a prayer, "Baby, help me remember what God is like. I'm beginning to forget."

It's time to Reconnect to Source....

1. Walk dog, listen to Mozart, hang out somewhere peaceful / comfortable...change the physiology of 'conflict'

2. Quiet the Mind from hustle and bustle, noise and events of the day ... or problems or challenges - stop to listen to your heart and focus on

The Voice inside

not the voices

3. How recognize voice?

            It’s language: 

                 

Free of problem, conflict, story

                             

Imbued with peace, beauty, joy, 

light, life, wisdom, power

                   

Is constructive and never destructive!

Plug in to the outlet of the Truth

                                   

Emerson again:

            Oh Man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

And who you are ...

You are the face of God

I hold you in my heart

You are a part of me

You are the face of God

                                                         (Karen Drucker)

That’s who you are, that’s what you are, that’s why you are.....and you are here to do and be IT right now.

Be empowered by embodying 

the consciousness of your Divine Self

           

It guides you at all times ... not just on special occasions

The Power for Good is in your Mind and heart, so take control of your thought habits - your beliefs and use them for powerfulness...

                  ...then you will create the best life, light, love, joy, beauty, peace, power, and wisdom in your experiences...

              

             You can.....that’s who you are.     

The God in me sees the God in you....Namaste!