Center for Spiritual Living Midtown

If we combine the God image and the Santa image, we see that what we are is actually God giving the endless gift of God to Itself, not just at Christmas, but every day of the year. That's why the image we've created of this jolly old man in a beard, running around giving gifts to every child in the world, is so appealing. First, because it's a much greater idea than the one we see happening most of the time; and second, because we know, on some level - at the deepest, most profound, most loving and spiritual level - that it's completely possible. Not only is it possible; it's the way we should all be living.

Using its most basic definition, a god is any idea, or any belief — any person, place or thing — that we believe has power beyond our own. It becomes a problem for us when we also believe that this power has a will or a purpose that is not in tune with our greater good; that is, if we allow our ‘god’ to make decisions for us that don’t help us grow, or if we allow it to limit what we can or can’t do. So if we (consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or by default) give up our power to choose HOW we want to create our own life because we believe that someone or something outside of us has a different idea for us, or has power over us, and there’s nothing we can do about it, then we are following a false god.

We can never achieve physical security by fighting wars or building walls. The War on Poverty, the War on Drugs or a war against any disease, cannot succeed. All the wars that have been fought throughout history — even those fought for what we might call “good reasons” — all these wars have not created a secure world. Walls may keep danger out, at least for awhile, but they also lock us in. This is true about concrete walls, but it’s also true about mental walls. When our mind is constantly working, trying to anticipate what bad thing might happen next and how can we defend ourselves against it, the one thing we can be sure of is that we’re going to have lots of things happen that we need to defend against.

Ready or not the holiday season is here.  This is the time of year we give gifts to those we love and cherish to show them just how much they mean to us.  Don't know what to give everyone on your list???  Join me for the top 5 gifts you can give for the holidays.  These [spiritual] gifts are the perfect size and color that are sure to please everyone on your list.

Though we continually hear, in this teaching at least, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, our human side often tends to take the normal, average, day-to-day experiences of our life as “just the way things are.” If something happens every day, the same way, for a certain length of time, we tend to stop thinking about being grateful for it because we see it as something we deserve. We see it as the status quo, as an element of our life that’s simply ‘supposed’ to be there. As a result, we save the great gift of our appreciation for those one-time good deals that show up every so often, if we’re lucky. And the regular, everyday stuff, we ignore.

The purpose of having healthy boundaries is not to build a wall around us to protect us; it’s to take care of ourselves. It’s to honor ourselves. It’s to create a nice, safe, fun place for us to live, work and play, without being involuntarily or unnecessarily sucked into the problems or the affairs of other people who should be taking better care of themselves. Our spiritual birthright, which means simply our right to express Life by virtue of being here, gives us permission to live in a much larger space than the world (and some of the people in it) want to give us. That’s something that needs to change, but only we can do it, and we can only do it consciously. It doesn’t happen by accident.

Instead of working so hard to manage our time, most of us would be better off if we spent more time learning how to manage our consciousness. In other words, if we can learn to center ourselves whenever we want --- if we can learn to distinguish between what gives us energy and what drains our energy --- then Time will no longer have a hold on us. It can't. Because Time really is a spiritual concept. It isn't something that's imposed upon us; it's something that appears differently and responds differently to each of us as we change the way we look at it, because it's an essential part of the way our spiritual nature experiences this physical world.

One of the most basic laws of our being states that what we see in our experience is always a reflection of our deepest beliefs. This is especially true about the way we get along with people. We do not see other people the way THEY are; we see them the way WE are. Any time we find ourselves frustrated about dealing with a difficult person, the frustration and the irritation we’re experiencing is not in the other person, as much as it is in the way we’re reacting to them. It’s in our consciousness. How you can tell? Because, even when we get away from them, it’s still there. We carry our resentment around with us. That means there’s some painful area IN US that needs to be healed

When we talk about ‘an expanding universe,’ our focus should not be so much on the physical expansion; instead, we need to be paying very close attention to the mental and spiritual expansion that is now our responsibility. The universe at large will continue to work the way the universe works, because the laws are fixed. But as far as we’re concerned, as a race of beings in our little corner of the universe, the blueprint of Life is now no longer fixed. Along with the ability to grow and expand that we have always had, we have now assumed the responsibility for our own success or failure, for our own growth or annihilation.

Money is not a thing --- it’s energy. Joseph Campbell said that “Money is congealed energy, and releasing it releases life’s possibilities.” So even when we don’t have cash and coins or money in our checking account to spread around, or to buy the things we want, we always have access to an endless supply of energy in the form of ideas and passion and creativity. We also have the freedom to use these intangibles. We need to get it into our heart and mind that there is no such thing as a money problem; there is only an idea problem. There is only a blockage of flow, a blockage of energy, and the only possible place the flow of ideas can be blocked is from inside our consciousness. to spread around, or to buy the things we want, we always have access to an endless supply of energy in the form of ideas and passion and creativity. We also have the freedom to use these intangibles. We need to get it into our heart and mind that there is no such thing as a money problem; there is only an idea problem. There is only a blockage of flow, a blockage of energy, and the only possible place the flow of ideas can be blocked is from inside our consciousness.