Expressions of Love
In This Issue
Now - by
Rev. Frank Arnold
Forgiveness -
Rev.
Sue Borg
Independence Day - Tama Kieves
The Awakened Way -
Adyashanti
By Rev. Frank Arnold
“The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the
world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future
from your fears, you find escape and give it to the world.” W236
Now is the time for.... Little did we know when we learned those words
in our typing class that we were typing such a profound idea. Now is not
only the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party, but
now is the only time -- period! Now is the only time for anything. I’m
not sure how many times I’ve heard that in my life, but I’m sure I never
heard it as much as I do these days. However, you’ll be happy to know
that I think I finally understand it - maybe. I loved Eckhart Tolle's
book, "The New Earth" and found it to be the best way yet to understand
The Power of Now, his other book. It brings us right back to the
teachings in The Course that to make any changes at all, the only thing
we can change is our mind, and as Suzi's article is talking about,
forgiving the ones that do not serve us or the ONE to which we belong.
When we speak of the now moment, we are talking about freedom, we are
talking about release from fear and guilt, and we are talking about the
ONLY time we have to be, do or say. You can never really know what the
next moment, day, week, month or year will bring, or even if it will be
there. Everything, but only everything, is right now. Anything other
than that is merely a thought that takes us into the future or back to
the past. As a general rule, the past is guilt and the future is where
we find fear.
Byron Katie says “If you want terror, get a future.” I think she’s
right. The mind is capable of scaring us to death (which isn't real
anyway). In this very moment there is no terror unless I have a thought
of terror, unless I spend time in my mind making up something to be
fearful of. It does not exist until I perceive it as such and/or name it
as such. Every time I feel angry, frustrated or unhappy, you can be sure
I am living in the past or in the future. In the past or the future, we
become oblivious to the joys that are our natural inheritance, the joy
that God placed in us. Wanna get happy - Get now!
Where are you right now? Are you experiencing the gift of joy, the gift
of happiness, the wonder of love? Are you having an experience of
Heaven, right here, right now. All this comes with an attitude of joy,
with an attitude of heaven, with an attitude of Love.
In every moment you decide what anything means, to choose with ego or to
choose with God. The Course would say, "choose with God.” If you choose
to see with the eyes of lack and fear, then surely that is what will be
reflected back to you (“something is wrong). If you choose to see with
eyes of Love and appreciation, then that, too, is what you will see (all
is well). The more you find broken, the more you need to fix. The more
you find whole, the more you need to celebrate
If you have perceived something as being wrong in your life, something
that needs fixing, now is the time to change that idea into one of
strength and power. God always ADDS to your Joy, and ego takes away from
it. Invite a new awareness into your mind and bring your attention to
this moment and choose for the Joy of God instead of the pain of the
ego. As you practice this you will notice a remarkable thing begins to
happen. It’s as though a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. It
is remembering that you always have a choice to come back to Love as
quickly as you can.
“When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as
easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led
as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.”
T260
by Rev. Sue Borg
"Do you prefer that you be right or happy?"
Whenever you are not feeling joyful, you can be pretty sure there is
something in your mind (your thoughts) that needs forgiveness. As A The
Course teaches, it is not the person or the thing that needs
forgiveness, it is only the thought that needs forgiveness. For
instance, you can say “I forgive the thought that someone could bring me
feelings of insecurity or feelings of being less than holy.” I FORGIVE
THIS THOUGHT.
We have learned from many teachers and from The Course, there is nothing
outside you that can bring you pain and there is nothing outside you
that can bring you joy. (Yes, joy as well). It is always
about what you think regarding that which you are seeing or perceiving.
It is always the thoughts that will create an experience of joy or pain.
So then, it only makes sense that it is only thoughts that must be
forgiven.
I think most everyone has heard “As a man thinketh, so shall he be.” If
I think you can say something or do something to hurt my feelings, it is
only my perception that can that hurt my feelings. I can always change
my mind when I perceive an attack from someone - and I can even turn it
around to something funny, like “Wow! I didn’t know that about me!”
You can diffuse an attack (if it is so perceived) by responding with
"you could be right." I learned that from Katie and from Dr. Wayne
Dyer. I have used that when I have perceived something as hurtful.
It does not mean that other is necessarily right, it only means they
could be right in their way of thinking, but you certainly don't have to
agree.
Through years of study, we have all learned everyone wants to be right.
In fact, people will fight to their death their right to be right, even
if they are wrong. So they actually will fight to their death
their right to be wrong – even about GOD. How many wars have been
going on for thousands of years over whose God is the better God.
When someone “pushes your buttons,” it’s because you created the buttons
to be pushed. You have offered them a way to help you stay in pain
and suffering when, in truth, you would rather be in joy and happiness.
Become aware of how you offer others a way to create your day just by
how you think about what they say. Once again, you are the one
responsible for your thoughts and you are the one who can change them
whenever you want to. You are the one who can "Forgive that thought" and
get back to peace.
We have made an idol of being right. Once we learn that only everyone
wants to be right, we can just let them be. If I argue with them, they
win – if argue with them, it’s because I think I know more and I want
them to be wrong and me be right. If I give up the argument, in my head
as well as in my spoken words, then my experience will be one quite
different than pain and suffering. Once again, The Course makes it
perfectly clear where happiness abides.
“Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each
time an idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there
can be no peace excepting there... Seek not outside
yourself. For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what
you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do
you prefer that you be right or happy? Be you glad that you are told
where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But
it is given you to know the truth, and not to seek for it outside
yourself.” T-29.VII.1
**************************
Independence Day
-
By Tama Kieves
A Declaration of Independence for the Free Soul
This Independence Day, why not write your own Declaration of
Independence?
What do you want to declare or break free from? I want to break free
from holding back my power. I no longer want to live with only my low
beams on. I want to shine so unequivocally that others decide to abandon
their own shadow choices. I want to break away from the undermining
thinking of the “realistic” world---and choose some independent
thinking, some firecracker, celebrating, birth-giving thoughts. Here’s
an excerpt from my DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Want to come and live in
my country?
As of this very second, I allow myself to be blessed.
I allow myself to be uncorked, unabashed, and showered with delicious
good in every facet of my life.
I don’t need to fit in anymore, in the world of struggling, suffering,
complaining, belittling. I am going nova and that’s okay. I am willing
to have things be easeful and brimming with sheer wonder and I am
willing to deserve this. None of us deserve this. That’s why it’s grace.
It’s not about deserving. It’s about allowing Spirit to love and give to
us.
Spirit, I am willing to allow you to give to me now. My work here
doesn’t have to be oppressive. I don’t have to plod up hill anymore,
dimming my song, or accepting crumbs and crusts and bowing my head. I
can keep my heart wide-open and parade through wide-open doors in a
welcoming world. I believe you want every golden circumstance for me. I
believe you want me to experience more fun, jubilance, connection,
generosity, nurturance, and synchronicity than ever before. I believe
you want me to know your nature and your nature is not one of limitation
or punishment or lack of any kind. I believe there are doorways to your
kindness that I haven’t opened yet. There are oceans and skies I
couldn’t see because I subscribed to the map of the world. There is
honey I’ve never tasted, bounty not of this realm. But I am willing now
to let go of the familiar and allow your unparalleled love.
I am willing to let go of what I think is possible or right or worldly
or to be expected---and I am willing to allow you to dream through me,
dance through me, breathe through me, grace through me, vibrate through
me, peace through me, burst through me, light through me, laugh through
me, gleam through me, dream through me. I am willing to co-create with
you and I am now willing to no longer limit your power with silly, tired
thoughts about my own. I am no longer willing to shape your destiny by
crunching mine into a little ball of stunted possibilities.
Finally, I am willing to allow myself to be cherished and loved and
nourished wherever I go and in whatever I do and it’ s not too much to
ask for, it is barely enough, because there are so many dimensions of
goodness and promise that I have yet to experience. The more I allow
myself to receive---the more I can open up to receiving and giving my
true love to this world as I have never given before.
Tama J. Kieves is a national A Course in Miracles presenter and the
bestselling author of THIS TIME I DANCE! Creating the Work You Love (How
One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All!)
Visit her at www.ThisTimeIDance.com and sign up for free inspiration and support through her monthly e-newsletter. Want to find your calling? Download Tama’s Free Report on “Finding Your Calling” right now at www.ThisTimeIDance.com.
Join her for her amazing weekend retreat “Jumpstart Your Creative Life! Reclaiming the Power of Inspiration” at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY (90 min from NYC) on Aug 8-10. Register now!
The
Awakened Way... by
Adyashanti
www.adyashanti.org
What is it like to live an
awakened life?
While the world is trying to solve its problems and everyone around you
is engaged in the same, you're not. While everybody around you is trying
to figure it out, trying to arrive, trying to "get there, "trying to be
worthy, you're not. While everyone thinks that awakening
is a grand, noble, halo-enshrouded thing, for you it's not. While
everybody is running from this life right now, in this moment, to tryto get there, you're not. Where everybody has an argument with somebody
else, mostly everybody else, starting with themselves, youdon't. Where
everybody is so sure that happiness will come when something is
different than it is now, you know that it won't. When
everybody else is looking to achieve the perfect state and hold on to
it, you're not.
When everybody around you has a whole host of ideas and beliefs about a
whole variety of things, you don't. Everyone on the path is getting
there; you haven't gotten anywhere. Everyone is climbing the mountain;
you're selling hiking boots and picks at the foot in the hope that if
they climb it and come back down, they may be too exhausted to do it
again. When everybody else is looking to the next book, to the next
teacher, to the next guru to be told what's real, to be given the secret
key to an awakened life, you're not. You don't have a key because
there's not a lock to put it in.
When you're living what you are in an awakened way, being simply what
you've always been, you're actually very simple. You basically sit
around wondering what all the fuss is about. When everyone is sitting
around saying, "I hope that happens to me," you remember when you did
that. You remember that you didn't find a solution to that. You remember
that the whole idea that there was a problem created all of that. When
you're being what you are, when you're living the awakened life, there's
nobody to forgive, because there's no resentment held, no matter what.
The truth of your being doesn't crave happiness; it could actually care
less. It doesn't crave love, not because you are so full of love,
but because it just doesn't crave love. It's very simple. It doesn't
seek to be known, regarded highly, or understood. When you're living
what you are in an awakened way, there's no ideal for you anymore.
You've stepped off the entire cycle of suffering, of becoming; you're
not interested.
It's a curious life you find yourself in. You find yourself… where you
are. Not where I am, where you are. Where you really are. Where we
really are. It's a curious place to be (especially in the beginning) not
to be driven by anything—pleasure or displeasure, helping or
hurting, loving or hating. The only thing that will move you (and I
don't mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a
leaf hanging from a tree. It's simply because the breeze blows that way.
So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that's the
way you go. You don't ask questions anymore. You don't evaluate why the
breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don't know why. And
you know you can't know why. There's never been a leaf anywhere that
knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That
breeze changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment,
simply because that's the way life's moving. And when you're living in
your awakened self you have no argument with the way it's moving because
it is the same as you are.
And you know that the breeze was always there, from the very beginning,
and that it wasn't reserved for special people. If you
didn't notice it at some point in your life, you know it was because you
weren't listening, or because you thought you had to figure
something out before you could listen, or because you thought there had
to be some conclusion before you could just listen so deeply, so without
agenda, so without hope of a better future that you would feel the
movement.
Many of you know what I'm speaking of. Truth never explains why it's
moving that way at that moment. And if you ask, it won't give any
information. It would be like a leaf asking the wind, "Why are you
moving that way right now?" The question doesn't make any sense to the
wind.
But your argument with the way the truth would move—whatever that way
is—is no longer there for you. You're no longer arguing with it. You're
no longer trying to figure it out. Mother Mary didn't figure it out.
Buddha didn't figure it out. Ramana didn't figure it out. None of them
figured it out. They just became That. Simple. Ordinary—in the same way
a leaf is ordinary.
When you're living in your awakened being and living in an awakened way,
power on any level is not an issue for you. It's not interesting. The
power to control another human being is not interesting. Intellectual
power is not interesting. The power to control yourself is not
interesting. The power that people want to give you is not interesting
to you—not because it shouldn't be; it's just not. What would you want
to do with it? You see that there's nothing you want to do with it. You
realize, in the truth of your being, that you are the totality itself,
but you have no interest whatsoever in doing anything with that
knowledge, with using that knowledge.
Finally, you realize that you really don't want to change anybody, not
because you shouldn't want to change them, because you just don't. You
might not want to be around everyone, but still you don't want to change
them. None of this is an ideal—it's the end of ideals. None of this is
holiness; it's the end of holiness. It's the beginning of wholeness.
None of this is something to achieve, because it's not achievable. It's
simply what is in the truth of your being. It's just what is. You can't
attain what's naturally so. And nobody anywhere can ever tell you when
or why, or to what degree you'll let go of untruth; you will let go when
you let go, usually when nothing else works.
When you're living in the awakened way, in the awakened being that you
are, you're alone, and you're finally comfortable with it. You're
alone, but you're not lonely at all, because the only one who was ever
supposed to meet you where you are—the only one who ever could meet you
where you are one hundred percent—was you. Nobody else could ever fully
meet you where you are—maybe ninety percent, maybe ninety-five. Nobody
can meet you fully but you. When you finally do, then you don't need
anybody else to do it for you. Then you're alone, more alone than you
could ever imagine. And strangely—very strangely—you are more connected,
more intimate, more at one with everything. More. And you would have
never thought that those two could in any way be together:total aloneness and total oneness. You would have never guessed that
that's the way it would end up. But it does, and it always has.
And finally, when you're just living in the awakened way that you really
are, you'll never form an image again of what it's like. Even
as it's happening, you won't form an image because you'll know they're
all images, dust. The way it was yesterday won't be the way it is today.
Adyashanti. Awakened Living Intensive. Berkeley, CA.
http://www.adyashanti.org/