Center for Spiritual Living Midtown

The Rhythm of Life - Rev Paul Gonyea

Every enlightened teacher tells us there’s a natural rhythm to the process of creation. Just like a heartbeat, it changes when the demands made upon it change, but it’s still a natural rhythm that keeps things flowing smoothly. When we use it consciously, it starts with desire, which is an inner drive for something greater. Then it moves to awareness, where our mind starts to pay attention not only to what is, but to what could be. Then we begin to see ways in which those things we desire could actually happen. And finally we take action by moving forward, then stepping back. We do it by working, then resting. We do it by focusing, then meditating. There has to be a rhythm to our efforts, or we’ll exhaust ourselves, or we’ll get fixated on one single way of accomplishing our desire.

Ready, Willing, and Able - Rev Paul Gonyea

In these New Thought teachings, I think too many of us get caught up in thinking we can just visualize the end result and have it show up, without our having to do any work in the interim. If that’s what we’re thinking, then that means we don’t understand how the universe works. Because mental and spiritual work is not a shortcut around the creative process. It just looks like a shortcut to us because we’re so used to obsessing on our past, complaining about the present, and worrying about all the possible disasters that might befall us in the future, before we finally get around to doing what we need to do. It’s a wonder we get anything productive done, and a lot of people don’t.

Nothing But The Truth - Rev Paul Gonyea

The Truth of Life doesn’t really change, but our relationship to it does. When we were children, our parents taught us certain limited Truths to protect us. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t stay out after dark. Then, as we got older, we got a new set of Truths. It’s a tough world out there. Life is a struggle. People are out to cheat you. As we became more and more involved in society, we started collecting even more Truths from all sorts of different directions: Our friends. Our schools. Our religious institutions. What we didn’t realize was, first of all, that these Truths were not really THE truth — they were just the beliefs of the people who gave them to us. And second, they had nothing to do with the Truth of our being — they had nothing to do with the Divine Truth already within us that was ready to set us free.

The Power of One - Rev Dr Bob Deen

Our relationship with Power… what we believe about it…our experiences with it… our real and imagined use of it… determines most of our decisions about how we live our lives. Our values are based on it, our moment to moment choices follow its lead. Join us as we explore these core choices that determine so much of how we live.

The Red Hot Rock - Rev Paul Gonyea

Scientists are finding out more and more how resentment affects us. People who tend to blame other people for their problems experience a much greater incidence of serious illness. People who do not get along with others tend to die at a significantly earlier age. People who are constantly angry about a wide variety of things, especially if they keep that anger locked inside, not only have a much greater risk of cancer and heart disease, their recovery rate is also very poor, unless they also make a radical change at the mental, emotional and spiritual level. That’s where the real damage occurs. Because it’s the mind and spirit that create and sustain the body. That’s where the healing ultimately has to come from.

A Piece of the Puzzle. - Rev Paul Gonyea

When something happens in my experience, or someone does something that I don’t like, and I ask the universe, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ I have to accept that this experience still fits into my life somewhere, somehow, because (1), It happened, and (2), I was there! It may not seem to fit where I am at the time, but it will definitely fit where my life is going, as a lesson or a tool that can help me in the future. I can plan on it. And if something appears to be missing in my life, and I really do need it (like money, or a relationship, or a better job), I can be sure that it’s around me someplace; I just haven’t figured out yet what it looks like. The good news is, all I have to do is relax and keep on putting things together, and it will show up when it needs to show up.

But Do You Really Love Me? - Rev Paul Gonyea

This constant, inner desire we all have to love and to BE loved is probably the most powerful mental, emotional, physical and spiritual drive we have. It begins before we’re born, and it will undoubtedly continue in some powerful way after we die, because love never dies and (spiritually speaking) neither do we. However, with that being said, what some of us would like to know — is this. If the desire to love and to be loved is supposed to be such a natural thing, then why isn’t it easier? Why are so many of our most difficult and devastating life situations centered around relationship problems?

Now What?! - Rev. Dr. Robert Deen

Part of what makes life so interesting is the fact that it’s unpredictable. When good things happen unexpectedly, that’s OK; but bad things, not so much. Sometimes there seems to be a never-ending stream of events that require time, energy and solutions that we may not feel we have. So, since none of us has the ability to predict the future, is there anything we can do to make life just a little easier when ‘stuff happens’? That’s where our consciousness and our awareness comes in. Once we master the spiritual principles that shape the creative process of Life, even if we don’t know what tomorrow brings, we know that we’ll be able to handle it.

The Living Spirit of Life - Rev Paul Gonyea

Everything we talk about in this teaching is based on the belief that this experience we are having, here in this physical world, is a process. It's a spiritual process. It's a creative process. In fact, life itself is a work in progress. And that progress, though it has to start IN ME, in my consciousness, is always manifested OUT THERE, in the physical, material world. That’s where I see the results of my beliefs, my choices and my actions at work. That’s where what I do, or what I don’t do, becomes readily apparent.

Seeing God in the World - Rev Paul Gonyea

There’s nothing spiritual about staying at home and praying for a lucky break. People who succeed in this world (and by that I mean people who enjoy their life, because that’s the only kind of success that counts) don’t succeed just because they’re lucky, or because they have something special that no one else has. People who are ready when opportunity knocks aren’t where they are just by coincidence. They are there by right of consciousness. They just happen to be ready when something good happens because they’re ALWAYS ready for something good to happen. They aren’t always preparing for the worst case scenario.