Ripples in Time

What if everyone in the world, every single one of us - all seven billion of us - on the Earth stopped whatever we are doing at this very moment - took a deep breath and said, "I am Love"; what if that happened?  What if every soldier, every prime minister, every child, every businessman, every mother, every teacher, every rabbi, every imam, priest, yogi, every rich man, every poor woman - what if everyone said, "I am Love," all in unison, all around the world, right now?

Then, what if everyone looked at the person next to them, and said to that person, "You are love, too."  and then, they would realize that I and you, we, are all love.  In that one moment, or maybe two moments, the whole world would know the truth, finally.

Why doesn't everyone know that they are made of love, for love, to love and in that love is the most wonderful, creative, adventure, and it is why we're all here.  There are universes upon universes in the eyes of your neighbor.  Your shadow self is in the eyes of your enemy.  Who you really think you are is all around you in your life right now.  The terrible economic crisis that's slowly debilitating Europe and soon to come to a town near you, is symptomatic of our global spiritual impoverishment.  There's no use pointing fingers at Enron, or Wall Street, or the U.S. government, or even multi-national corporations who are indeed sucking the planet dry, it's too late for all that.

It's time now - right now - to put down your newspaper - and pick up the phone and call someone, anyone, and tell them in whatever why you can that you love them.  In that single gesture, you are acknowledging that you are love because you do, act out, of your own nature.  If you rob someone, it's because you think you are poor, and you are - you are poor in self love and the knowledge that you have the power in you to attract everything you need.  If you give to someone, it's because you think you have more than enough and you have the faith in your ability to attract more, even more than the amount you gave.  You see?

So, right now, say to yourself, preferably out loud, "I am love."  Then, say to the next person you see - even if you don't say it out loud - but say it intentionally and strongly in your mind as you direct it at him, "You are love, too."  In those two moments, you will have sent a message deep into your mind, that will help bring forth who you really are, who that other person really is, who we all really are. It might just come back to you in some unexpected way.  The more love we accept and affirm that we have, the more we will see it out there, projected out on the movie screen of your life.

The problem with the world is that too many people forgot who they are.  They forgot that the person who strikes them, lashes out in anger, or terrorizes them in some way, is acknowledging that they don't have love in them. They have a love deficiency.  The way to treat a love deficiency, is to love.  (However, enabling is not love, and how to treat people in the criminal system is another story, but love needs to be part of their healing.)

There's a story told by Ronald Rolheiser in his book, The Holy Longing, which so beautifully portrays this idea.  I quote: "One day the Buddha, badly overweight, was sitting under a tree.  A young solder, trim and handsome, came along, looked at the Buddha, and said, 'You look like a pig!'  The Buddha replied,  'Well, you look like God!'  'Why would you say that?' asked the rather surprised young soldier. 'Well,' replied the Buddha, 'We see what's inside us.  I think about God all day and when I look out that is what I see.  You, obviously must think about other things'..."

So, right now - deep breath - and say to yourself ....
"I am love," "Soy el amor," "Я - любовь," "أنا أحب," "Jag älskar," "Είμαι αγάπη," "Ako pag-ibig," "Ich bin Liebe," "Je suis l'amour," "Tá mé grá,""אני אוהב," "Ja uwielbiam," " EU sunt iubirea," " Mimi ni upendo," "Yr wyf yn gariad," "Ja sam ljubav," "我爱," " Já jsem láska," "Mwen renmen," "मु३ो प्रेम," " Ég er ást," "IO sono amore," "من عاشق .".....

.... and that doesn't even include all the languages of the Native peoples of the Americas.  At our core, in our hearts, we all want to be loved and to love, everything else is just what we do while we're waiting for love to arrive within us, around us.  But, we can give it a little nudge by first loving ourselves and then allowing that love to spill out into our immediate surroundings and letting it spread out like ripples from a pebble thrown in the lake.  If we all do it, our ripples would all connect.

And, what if we did it every day as often as we remembered? That would be amazing!

Thank you for loving yourself and the whole world.  It's a beautiful place and life is a wonderful adventure - especially when it's spring and we're all in love - with love.


Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing (New York: Doubleday, 1999), pp. 239 - 240.

"Lift Up Your Hearts"

The lead conductor of the angelic realm, looking down at Earth from on high, sang to all of life now languishing on the smoking planet, 


"O, people, O blessed ones, who still have yet to know who you really are, 'Lift Up Your Hearts. Lift up your eyes, your ears, your voice and all of heaven will hear the song of your hearts.' "


Softly, in a muffled whimper, the people who heard, sang back, "We lift them up to the Lord."


Joyously, energized with an abounding new hope for his creation, the great One chimed in now with all the angelic realm, 


"I am with you now and always, even as I have always been with you, since the beginning."


A stillness .... then, in a long, great exhale, they responded in the wake of the great One's song, merging heaven and earth in a great cosmic dance of reunion, so long awaited, so long sought after, so long prayed for.  


The weary ones, the hungry, the outcast, the old, the young, the sick, all those who have suffered for their unguarded, open-hearted natures which too often left them vulnerable to the spiritual buzzards who soared the skies searching the earth to feed their voracious appetites on human souls, all those huddled and poor, tossed across the ocean to an unknown, English-speaking land with the faint hope life could be better than the constant fear of terrorism - the terrorism of their own religion, of their own governments, of their own family - they all heard the great One in their hearts. 


In every language and through - even despite - every religious lens or the loud sirens and screams from another car bombing - through all the noise around them and the groaning masses among which they too found themselves, they heard.  The great One, along with the great masses of angels gathered together, sang softly into each heart, "I am with you .... now and always.....lift up your hearts."


These precious dear ones, among whom you too are counted, could hear the great One's voice because all else in this dying world had been silenced or taken away from them.  There were no more ambitions, no more vain dreams for power, greed, conquest - not anything. All that was stripped away until all they had was each other and they stood together, empty of anything but the single thing that held them together - their common humanity and shared hope.  In their hunger and their poverty, they came to this moment with only their complete surrender to the great creator of life itself.  


Like a dying starfish on the ocean shore, they waiting for the great One's help. Even in their waiting, they held a faint whisper of hope that somehow they could and would survive. They all knew on an even deeper level that each had prayed, even despite a blind and weak faith, they had prayed to the great One to save the world, to end the wars, remove the lies that penetrated the hearts and minds of even the best among them.  They thought the great One might not have heard their prayers, but they waited anyway.


The great One was always there, always listening, always loving and longing for their voices, gathered together as one, to ascend, and on this beautiful, perfect morning, they heard the angels finally.  They heard the cosmic invitation to lift up their hearts, and they tried and they lifted.  In their last reach in hope, they sang back, together, in each own's language and culture and religion .... "We lift them up to the Lord, the ever living God."


For millenia, upon millenia, the great One had waited for this moment when they would give up the lies of the buzzard king.  When they finally fully realized they had been deceived, in that most sacred, eternal moment of awareness, they all awakened and heard the great One's eternal call.  


First, faintly, then growing stronger and stronger in their reply, they sang back, crescendoing throughout the cosmos, "We lift them up to you, holy, ever living God." In each wave of song, their hearts rose, uplifting and dancing among the stars with the angels and the great One, until they were fully restored, with new flesh and bone, new hearts of power and greatness. 


Then, together with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, they praised the great One, singing,


"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of your glory. Glory be to you, O Lord Most High." 

After a time in heaven, where they were fully renewed and restored, they returned to the barren planet, mere rubble now from the wars between the buzzards and men.  They returned, now powerful, loving creators, living in the dignity of grace given to them by grace from the great One,  the land, misted with a light healing greening balm, grew a beautiful, florid cover, and deer and rabbits emerged from the new bushes..... and then they saw the new Earth... and they felt all around them the presence of the great One.  They, now conscious and aware of the presence in and around them, returned to start again, to live again in this mortal dimension within the great heart beat of the immortal One.

Profound Stillness

Peace is more than an intention, or a wish, or a prayer. It is more than antiwar protests, long eloquent speeches or articles, even books. It is so much more than even that calm between storms. It is not a liberal Democrat’s political position promulgated in Congress like an anti-missile launch. It is not political, economical, social - not earthly at all. It is not something we do. It is not an action of any kind. It is in the breath between words, in that moment when we stop talking, even stop thinking, and allow the angels space to breathe for us.

Peace is that profound stillness, infinitely fertile power which removes all barriers to the divine presence and gently holds you. It is an infinite and deeply saturated moment infused with love and the presence of God.

Peace, like so many beautiful spiritual attitudes, has long eluded us. As the many centuries-long dark night of our collective soul clouded over earth’s civilizations, each in its own way reinterpreted these ancient ideas, in less and less depth, until they became social action statements, political platitudes, nice Sunday school ideas, but not the cutting-edge opening into ultimate truth and reality, essential truths they really are.

Peacemakers throughout these long dark centuries have, through deep prayer (as in Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Jesus, Buddha, and so many others in recent times), discovered a great calm, an endless ocean of stillness. It is beyond understanding, beyond words. It is beyond intellectual description or understanding. It is ineffable because it resides in and emerges from the heart, which has its own language, often realized through the arts. It radiates itself, as love radiates itself. Words may be able to frame it, a bit, but they are not it. It also cannot be legislated because it is free and comes of its own free will. It has its own intelligence and being and comes on the wings of grace when it wills, when the climate is right.

Peace grows in a unique soil, lives and flourishes in a fertile climate. Like a precious rare flower, it will not grow in an acidic oil slick, or a chemically infused, toxic environment. It grows in a gentle valley, a sacred place, where it is honored and welcomed. It is a place where the heart is cherished above the hardness of the brain. It is a place of unsurpassed patience, of endless compassion, of resonant music and light, gentle and allowing. It grows where it is seeded and then nourished. It cannot be bought or sold or controlled or enslaved. It is eternally alive and powerful in its ability to bring all who enter into its gentle, radiant stillness, deeper into the throne room of God, into the real holy of holies within the human soul, into the authentic presence of God, whom we can meet in this climate of peace.

Peace seekers can create the right climate in which it can be seeded and grown. They can make the workplace or home an intentional uncluttered gentle garden for love, acceptance, unconditional compassion, infinite patience filled with much beauty. They can make it a place that honors each and every one that lives, works, or enters it. The spiritual light and love in that garden can be enhanced by the objects placed within it. Light attracts more light. Color brings life to a dead space. Soft music, baroque, classical, sweet Irish ballads, some ancient chanting, played softly, in an atmosphere of positive aromatic essences - lavender and jasmine and rosemary, for example—all will help to create an invitation to peace.

Peace is like the proverbial bird of paradise. It comes at our invitation when the climate is right. The right climate is the invitation. It is also invited intentionally by us through prayer and the stillness of meditation.

Peace is waiting for an invitation. As you look around your home, your office, your workplace, see how it does - or doesn’t - invite peace. Then if, in your heart of hearts, you truly want to raise the spirituality of this place, detoxify it, get rid of the old stuff, paint the walls, bring in plants and fountains, a lead-free scented candle. Set aside time each day to sit quietly in that atmosphere, just being, not doing, and pray or sit in quiet reflection or meditation. If we prepare for peace, and wait, peace will surely come.

Peace I leave with you, 

my peace I give unto you: 

not as the world gives, give I unto you. 

Let not your heart be troubled, 

neither let it be afraid. 

- John 14:27

Shadow of Death

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 

He leadeth me beside the still waters. 

He restoreth my soul: 

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 

I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; 

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: 

Thou anointest my head with oil; 

my cup runneth over. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: 

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.  

(Psalm 23, KJV)

Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross and in three days rose from the "dead," and continues to live eternally at the "right hand of the Father."  So, if that is true - if our faith is authentic - then it would logically follow that he is still alive in another state or dimension, one that we cannot "see" with our human eyes, but can feel or "see" with our inner eye. If that is what we believe, then it should not come as a surprise that Christ is talking to us today, as he always has throughout the ages to mystics and others, i.e. St. Theresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Teresa "the little flower," just to name a few.  In these "last days," and exactly what that means remains to be clarified, it seems he is very much speaking to us, through modern prophets, mystics and just ordinary people all over the world, in every country and culture. The dark forces would keep us skeptical, doubting these people's witness, unbelieving of their messages that reveal their encounters with Christ.  But, if you have studied the ancient scriptures, many of the Gnostic scriptures (although  not all) and poured deeply over the Gospels, you will find the SAME message coming through.  Through my own study, several years ago I came across The Christ Letters.  At first, like many others, I was skeptical, until I really read them and saw that Christ was honestly and truly speaking to us, AGAIN. And, why wouldn't he?  Doesn't our world need him now as much as ever, if not moreso. So, this day, this Good Friday, when we kneel at the cross and remember his courage, his strong faith, his powerfully authentic Oneness with God, a bond so strong that death could not sever it, we may also remember that he taught us how to enter into that same bond with God, how to build a strong bond with God, one strong enough that when our mortal bodies have ceased breathing, our souls would remain connected to God and continue to live in truth, without illusion, eternally.  I believe that when that day comes, when we have "fought the good fight," we will indeed really see with our inner eye, Christ standing there before us with arms outstretched welcoming us into the light. So, on this Good Friday, I am sharing the following from The Christ Letters with you.  May you be cheered by this good news:  There is no death and God's love is sufficient to bring you through any trial, any "shadow of death," safely, completely and truly.  This is no fairy tale.  It's the real deal.

Dear Readers of Christ's Letters, Letter 3 Christ outlines to us the truth regarding his death on the cross, and what it really meant to humanity. He wasn't the 'sacrificial lamb' millions believe was led to the slaughter... He was simply the man who died because he knew and spoke the Truth of Existence.   "In the garden, there was a special boulder, shaped like a little cave. I liked to shelter in it from the wind. And so I sat and meditated and prayed, seeking a way into the exalted harmony I had enjoyed in the past. I knew that when I moved into attunement with the 'Father Love', my fears would dissolve and I would be in a state of total and absolute peaceful confidence again. As I felt the Power of Love move into me and possess my human consciousness, so did the strength to endure what lay ahead, possess my heart. I would be able to remain within the Love and give the Love to others to the very end. And so it was. I will not even attempt to re-enter into the trial and crucifixion state. It is of no consequence. When I finally died on the cross and my spirit withdrew from my tortured body, I was lifted into ineffable and radiant LIGHT. I was enclosed in the warmth and comfort of LOVE, such as I had never experienced before. I had a sensation of enveloping praise, a powerful assurance of work well done, of ecstasy in universal strength to continue the work, and joy and rapture which is far beyond any that the earthly condition can ever know. I moved into a new and wondrously beautiful way of life but I still descended in consciousness to remain in touch with the people I had left behind. I was able to show myself to those who were sufficiently sensitive to be able to see me. However, the story of Thomas who supposedly fingered my wounds is nonsense." - Christ Returns, Letter 3                 Many of you within the community may be aware of our dear friend and brother, Marco, in Italy. He is truly living within the light of Christ, for he and his friends have been inspired to walk into the heart of Vatican City and enlighten people to the Truth... the Truth about Christ. It is this Truth that the world so desperately needs to hear. The quote I have chosen for this week, and for this Easter period, is so important for the message we believe in, because it separates our Millennium Christ-given Truth from the beliefs of Christians. Without ideas like this, we would simply be another Christian sect, like the nearly 2000 Christian Churches estimated to be established today in the world. This quote is the message which the world needs to hear... That their view of Christ as the 'only begotten Son' is wrong. The true message of the Letters is of a man who attained the Christ Consciousness. The message of a spirit who freed himself from the chains of the ego. The message of a free spirit who wasn't sacrificed by his father in some cruel enactment of mercy, but the message of a free spirit who dared to live in alignment with Divine and to teach others from that standpoint. Christ... thank you for bringing your message to the world then as you have done in our time. Thank you for enlightening us to the Nature of Reality, and our place in it. Thank you for never giving up when the world acted as six-year-olds brawling over one toy action figure. Thank you for your unconditional love that your pour out for all. We owe you so much, and this Easter time shouldn't be a time to remember your crucifixion and fabled resurrection... but a time to remember what you have given the world in your teachings.     With love and light, Mark

Perfect as One

(Garden of Gethsemane)

What fear must have gripped his cosmic heart, what grief must have stung his sensitive longing at the betrayal of a friend, what very human thoughts must have dashed through his mind, this young man, barely 30, who knew his destiny, his pending tortured death, before his friends and followers?

Sometimes the anticipation of what lies ahead is more gripping and unbearable than the actual event itself.  The mind can possess your heart in a way that even the heart can't recognize its own oppressor.

Yet, even then, in his own darkest moment, as he wept in the garden before his arrest, he prayed for his friends.  In those moments, as they slept away the wine of their last supper together, he thought of them, "those whom God had given" him, he said.  His fears for them, his deepest concerns for them, was that the "cunning one," the  anti-christ would trick them, steal away their faith, their hope, their love and their very souls.  

He lived and breathed in perfect communion, "as One," he said, with our creator.  He, like Adam, the first man, walked this garden of life, in perfect intimacy with our creator.  His journey here was to open our hearts and our minds, our souls, to the truth that our creator made us out of love and for love, a truth that had been stolen from us by the lies of the anti-christ force that had taken the whole world captive.  He came to free the world from that prison, in which it languished fearfully captivated by a lie.

His message is simple really.  There is no difficult theological underpinnings to this knowledge.  We are made of God, in God's image, to create, to evolve into our adult spiritual selves, and the only way to do that is with God's love, which is the ultimate wisdom.  Wisdom knows that love is the rocket fuel for our souls - not an ordinary wisdom, not an ordinary love, but a wisdom from the most loving source, that opens us into our divine nature to be the ultimate beings of love and creation.

His last prayer, offered to God, in this garden, is recorded in the Gospel of John, Chapter 17*.

"Father, the hour has come,

Glorify your son so that your son may glorify you

as you have given him authority over all flesh

So he may give life everlasting to all you have given him.

And, this is the life everlasting

so that they may know you, the only true god

and he whom you sent,Yeshua the anointed.

I glorified you on earth

by completing the work you gave me to do 

and now glorify me, father, with yourself,

with the glory I had with you before the world was.

I made your name known to the people

whom you gave me from the world.

They were yours and you gave them to me

and they have kept your word.

Now they know that all you gave me comes from you.

Because the words you gave me I gave them.
And they accepted them,

and they knew the truth that I came from you

and believed that you sent me.

I ask for their sake

I am asking not for the sake of the world

but for the ones whom you gave me

because they are yours.

And all that is mine is yours and yours is mine

and I am glorified in them

And I am no longer in the world

but they are in the world

and I am coming to you.

Holy father, keep them in your name

which you gave me

so they may be one as we are one

When I was with them,

through your name I kept those whom you gave me.

I guarded them and not one of them was lost

except the son of perdition

so that the scripture be fulfilled.

Now, I am coming to you

and these things I say in the world 

so my elation be fulfilled in them.

I gave them your word and the world hated them

since they are not of the world

as I am not of the world.

I do not ask you to take them from the world

but to keep them from the cunning one.

They are not of this world as I am not of this world.

Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word** is truth

As you sent me into the world so I sent them

into the world.

And for them I sanctify myself 

so that they also be sanctified in truth.

I do not ask for them alone

but for those believing in me through their word

that we may all be one

as you, father, are in me and I in you,

that the world may believe that you sent me.

The glory you gave me I give them

so they may be one as we are one,

I in them and you in me

so they may be made perfect as one,

so the world may know that you sent me

and loved them just as you loved me.

Father, where I am I want the ones you gave me 

also to be with me and see my glory,

which you gave me since you loved me

before the foundation of the world.

.

Just father, the world did not know who you were,

but I knew you

and these ones knew that you had sent me

I made your name known to them 

and I shall make it known

so the love with which you loved me

maybe in them and I in them.

*   Translated from the Greek, in which the original Gospel of John was written, by Willis Barnstone.  (The Gnostic Bible, edited by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, p.90  92)


**  From the Greek "logos" is often translated as "word," and represents the masculine principle of wisdom governing the universe, which is "scientific logic," according to Deacon Thaddeus Pijacki. In Hebrew, wisdom is often personified as Sophia in the feminine principle. Her mystical  "wisdom is an inner understanding that transcends logic and allows meaning to surface for love, courage, beauty, suffering, new life and other abstract realities beyond explanation by Logic," Dr. Pijacki  wrote. 

A Garden for Lovers

Earth, our beautiful garden home, was always intended as a place for lovers to live in and create their dreams. At creation, Earth came with all the ingredients for a perfect home for us to live in as powerful, creative, poetic lovers. 

A full moon whispers softly to our heart's free abandon every month. Warm, radiant sunshine dances on the surface of the water, beaming and smiling its effervescent joy and presence of love everywhere. 

The warm sand beneath our bare feet softly invites us to stroll peacefully along the tranquil shore. Strong snow-capped mountains protect the more delicate life in the valleys. Moist green forests provide shelter for the animals. Fruit trees, nuts, berries and plants offer food for our lives. In this beautiful place, you can dream your life into being, think it, wish it, and it could be.  

Ah, if we only really knew this, really believed this magical mystery, everything would be so different. There would be no more struggle, no war, no conflict, no scrambling for our share of life - large and small - from an individual person to a nation. Everything we ever dreamed of for our lives, every fruit of life we ever wanted to taste, is in this lovely garden of life.

So why do so many of us experience rotten fruit and get what we don't want? While it is true we attract what we want, it seems many of us are operating from a corrupted subconscious that is also attracting what it believes we deserve based on erroneous early-life brainwashing. This behind-the-scenes program, buried in our forgotten memory, is yet very operable. It is that system that is doing the choosing or refusing for us. It was locked and loaded long before we had any conscious choice of will, usually before the age of 5.

We may know that we want our plans to work out. We may reach for our goals and dreams, but, on a deeper level that older program,instilled in us from childhood,has full control. It is like an inner software that runs on a limiting belief which sabotages our dreams. It is that internalized inner belief that is blocking our success.  Among many of its beliefs is that we're unworthy and so we should not have what we want. At some early stage in our primary years, an adult made us feel this way. Since we were unable to discern and reject that belief, we believed it.  

Essentially, we are in conflict with ourselves.  On a conscious level, we reach for a dream,but on a subconscious level, that dream is denied or remains out of reach. It's our job to discover why. Why do we believe we don't deserve or can't obtain it?  There may be a buried belief that we need to discover, forgive, and release it, thereby freeing us to receive our dream. 

I also believe our creator, who made this beautiful garden for us, is urging us to release that buried belief that we are unworthy of our dreams immediately before we destroy our home.
 
That early-life learned program operates as a mean (or abusive, or addicted) parent who withholds love as a means of control. It is sometimes called the "inner critic."  It insidiously believes we are undeserving or unworthy of success, love, acceptance or receiving what we want. It's active in our fundamental operating system for so many of us, if not all of us. We associate this mean, controlling, unloving, judgmental parent as the archetype of authority, which we project onto God. We learn to live in fear and we subconsciously believe that God (and all of heaven) judges us. We have been taught that we are "sinners," and therefore unworthy of just about any good thing.

Since that is our oldest belief. That wish is what comes true, over and over again. If you were taught from your childhood that you are a "sinner" and unworthy of God's love, it is bonded deep inside your psyche. We need to undo that belief.

To do that, we have to go to the source of our being and relearn the most fundamental lesson of life which is we are worthy and we are loved, absolutely unconditionally. When we can learn that, accept that, and firmly believe it, we can retrain our mind. A lot of spiritual material is out there now, saying this, but I don't think we can say it enough.  How many times do we have to hear something before we learn and believe it?  A lot of times.

It is imperative that we take back our innate power, immediately. It is urgent. We have to regain our own power, autonomy, freedom, creativity and awareness of our own innate divinity. Then, our dreams can bloom.

The very first thing we need to relearn is that we are loved and lovable and that God wants us to love ourselves, first, and each other as a consequence of loving ourselves. Loving others flows from and extends from our own self-love. We love ourselves by honoring our right to use our own creative power through self acceptance and belief in ourselves, in our right to our dreams, and the destiny to which they bring us. We have to tap into love that is sleeping within us.  It's right behind the door, closed and locked by judgment and condemnation.

Love is the highest power. It is sheer creative power. Its source is from the creator of the universe, our Divine Parent.  We will only receive it through our belief system and that belief system is built on the foundation of our self-worthiness. 

To receive God's love, we need to feel we're worthy of it. And, that's the problem with most religions.They teach us that we're not worthy and thereby keep us locked in chains in the dark dungeon of unconsciousness, by withholding the knowledge that God loves us. It was this very idea the church imposed on its followers for centuries. It suggested that God was a judge, rather than the beloved who wants to nurture us into enlightened beings.

By keeping people away from God's love, through judgment and conditional acceptable, the church kept us poor, hungry, unloved and powerless, groveling, rather than stepping up and into the power and light of our birthright as the divine children of the Divine creator of all of life. The church (as most other religions) had us eating out of its hand. We did what all disempowered people do, we gave it what it wanted so it would give us what we needed. We gave it our allegiance, our power, our money, our firstborn, our worship, our hearts, and minds. We became beggars when all along God wanted was for us to be His co-creative soul mates. The Church abused the western world for almost 2,000 years, in the name of the One who came to teach us the exact opposite.

Religion promised us access to God, to whom it claimed it had exclusive rights. But, it didn't really give us access to God. It didn't know the code and didn't hold the keys.  All it did was keep us away from its dirty little secret. By the time we were completely enslaved to the larger system, our souls had been sucked out of us. 

Somehow, by some awesome miracle, we are waking up to  this now. We've heard so much from the Spirit on an inner-knowing, gnostic, interior level that is counseling and leading us to the truth. Now, we want to wake up everyone and tell them that God loves them no matter what.  And, the journey of life begins when we realize how loved we are and accept God's love, as one would accept the love of the beloved.  

There is nothing blocking you from God's love except a deep-seated thought that you are unlovable and unworthy. And, that is a lie. You are worthy and loved. Hold that thought for as long as you can, as often as you can, and soon your life will radiate a brilliant luminescence that makes our troubled world a little bit brighter.

You are all beautiful, brilliant, loving and very loved children of God, worthy of everything you can dream of creating.  There is nothing you can do to change that FACT. As a child of God you deserve everything you can dream up and you are able to have everything you want.

Since love is the most powerful energy, with the highest and most magnetic vibrational intensity of anything in the universe, with that love in you, you can attract into your life anything - absolutely anything. The key is believing this, accepting it, and then allowing it to catalyze your dreams.

Jesus taught us to receive God's love, we start by accepting the knowledge that we are loved and worthy regardless of anything we've ever done before. God's love is absolutely unconditional. It is we who keep it from ourselves and each other through unforgiveness, not the other way around.

So, to undo the old, buried, subconscious programming, remind yourself that God's love is the very substance of life itself, and the power to create your perfect life is in the magnetic energy of God's love. 

It materialized all of creation, and it is there and God wants you to receive it. I believe Jesus died in an effort tell us this. He came to stop the spiritual controllers of his time(Pharisees and Sadducees) who were exploitive, manipulative, and deceptive. They were those who neither entered the kingdom of heaven themselves nor allowed others to enter, either. 

It is urgent that we all realize we are loved and lovable and potentially as powerful as any child of God. You are here to experience and express God's love and light into the world. First you have to receive it through acceptance and then live it out loud.

Put all else aside for now and think exclusively on this: 

You are loved absolutely unconditionally, and because you are a child of God, as we all are, you are worthy of God's love. And, because you are a child of God, as we all are, you deserve to exercise your power to create the life of your own imagining and dreaming, the life of your own heart, the life that is brimming over with joy, love, promise, hope and beauty, a life of perfection - however you define it. 

You are a powerful child of God.  Remember this.  And, remember that everyone else is too.  We are all alike in this.  

Love yourself and show to the world how much you love yourself by how you love others. Allow your inner power to flare up like a great presence within you.  If you are cruel to someone else, you are showing the world that you are cruel to yourself.  If you cheat others, you are showing us that you cheat yourself, that you don't know who you are and you don't feel worthy of God's love.  Only love can change your life.  When you feel love, you exude it.  The light of love within you, through your acceptance, can radiate into all your relationships and extend well beyond your control into life itself.

We can change our future by changing our present.  
You are worthy and you are loved. Live like you know it until you have changed your inner programming.  

The world is waiting for all of us to stand up tall as the powerful children of God, filled and imbued with his power and his love to stop the madness and recreate the world as it was always originally meant to be - a garden ...... a beautiful, vibrant, radiant garden of love - for lovers and all others in which we communed with God in the Spirit of love, ecstatically and in bliss. It was meant to be a paradise on Earth.  

Awaken: Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves, Part 1

"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: 

be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."  

Matthew 10:16 

The new age, being born out of the ashes of the old dying before us today, is one of real power, which is spiritual power.  It is the power of creation, of new life born out of love which is the highest potential of humankind and is the ultimate spiritual power. It is the power of the dove.

Real power is gentle, humble, loving, open and allowing.  Real power does not have to assert its will against another.  It doesn't  need to persuade or prove its point, coerce another to do anything, be anything other than who or what it is. Real power, as real love, celebrates the other for who or what it is, whether or not it is alike or different.  

A cat doesn't try to make a dog a cat.  It purrs alongside the dog admiring its fine coat.  But, why do people attempt to make other people be like them, different than who they already are?  Why are huge ugly egos out there attempting to make people believe as those egos believe?  Our beauty as a world, as a human being, is in our diversity.  

Wise people, those empowered and loving ones who can only look at history's bloody tragic past with tears in their eyes and sorrow in their hearts for what has been, have learned this hard lesson.  We are all different, yet all the same as children of the One God, and we are a people wearing a multi-colored coat, made for us by our beloved creator.

As we awaken to what is really happening out there on Earth today, we would be blind fools to not see that things are out of control and clearly not as our benevolent, life-giving creator intended.  It makes no sense and sensibility is one of the gifts given to us at our creation.  We were born with an innate sense of order and creativity.  We know instinctively to listen to our hearts, to do and be what is loving, kind, giving and creative.  Evidence of this is in all the world's cultures, mores, taboos and social decorum. 

As the crisis of world domination spirals insanely closer to self-destruction, where is our hope?  Where is the solution, the antidote to this hatred and insanity?  Throughout centuries, nations have clashed against each other, asserting the right-ness of each one's position, each claiming to be on God's right side. And, so we've come to today - the world's future hangs on the cliff as we continue to make these same claims.  Each religion thinks it's right, yet in its assertion that it is "the one true faith" and we all know they all claim that, we are showing our falseness, our blindness to what is really real.

I've said previously that the Q'uran doesn't need defending, nor does the Gospel or any other revealed religion.  What our sacred scriptures ask of us is to listen to what God is saying to us in them. God is gathering us together - as a hen would gather her chicks - as a mother cat would gather her kittens.  God is showing us where our real power lies.  

A Muslim and a Christian could agree on this, as could a Hindi and a Buddhist, or a Hopi and a Catholic.  Nature, which is the  environment in which we were born, is also a reflection of God's nature.  We are united, connected, to God and to each other by our shared nature.  Earthly power has been a lower vibrational means of leveraging survival.  As a kind of power over, material evolution reflects a Darwinian means of survival of the fittest, and as that idea is true on a material level of nature, it is also true on a spiritual level, the highest vibrational level of life, albeit unseen for us in three-dimension, yet real nonetheless. Those who are the most detached from ego, materiality, selfishness and greed, are the most fit spiritually and therefore will survive the shifting ages.  Those who are most surrendered to God, the most filled with God's love, humility, honesty, gentleness, and intentional love, are the most fit spiritually and will inherit the kingdom of God, on Earth. 

A few weeks ago, I was joking with a friend about the possibility that the solar flares would knock out the power on the west coast.  My friend joked back, "I don't have anything to worry about.  I have an underground bunker and a year's worth of water and food supplies."  

I laughed, knowing that my friend didn't, nor did I.  It was in that moment that I knew that if anything catastrophic ever happened, I was completely unprepared to protect the children, cats, myself and everyone else.  Yet, I also knew that with God's presence in my life, and the love of God that I have shared with everyone, we might make it.  I don't know how we would make it, but it wouldn't be because of an underground bunker.  It would be because God's love is more powerful than anything that could happen to us. 

The promised new age, the one that will emerge after this dark age has descended out of existence, when the lower powers of control and manipulation have wiped itself out, all that will survive will be the strongest ones spiritually, those made powerful by love.  The courage of those strongest ones, the highest, most powerful skill sets of those wiser, higher vibrational ones is their only hope. The greatest power is the power of love, but it is a love too few humans really embrace and live by.  It is a strong, confident, creative spiritual power.  It is the power to "move mountains" with a single thought.  It is the power to love an enemy, to kiss a leper, to walk on water, to resurrect the dead, to relinquish our will on any given situation and open the door for the Spirit or wisdom of God  to enter any situation and effect the healing, the help, the hope, the breath of life so long awaited. 

True power is the power of the dove. It is the power of God alive and active in an open-hearted, God-surrendered human being. Images of the pure-hearted-spirited dove are woven into our ancient memory.  When Noah opened the ark after the flood to check the safety of the newly washed world, he sent out a dove. The spirit of God descended onto Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan as a dove. This idea is central to all the world's religions, those uninfected by the anti-christ's fear and debasing soul-sabotage.

The  new age will be an elevated period of human experience on the earth in which we live love, create with that very substance of God's divine power, and surrender our fears, our ego-based manipulative effort to control through force and fear, threats of death and poverty and lack, when our only arsenal is wisdom and love, received from God through our honest surrender spiritually, whole-heartedly to God's own love for us.  

I can imagine such a new world.  I can see us loving each other, cooperatively birthing a greater freedom of soul, midwifing together this new world.  I long for it,  I live for it, and wait patiently for us to wake up to it, now, right now, today as we let go of the hold the anti-christ has on the world.  

In this very moment, we can wake up.  In the blink of an eye, we can surrender our fear, our guilt, our addictions and loosen the grip the anti-christ has on us, individually and collectively.  

Each one of us must seek our own salvation and that salvation is found in our choice to be free and followers of our own hearts where God is heard and experienced.  It is in love that we are found and it is in love that we find God.  That love is our power and that love is anything but controlling.  It is allowing, freeing and hopeful that we will chose that road less traveled, that path out of the dark into the beauty of real life and real power.  

Remember nothing is what it seems.  Don't be deceived by an attractive package.  Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. We must be wise to the dark manipulations of those would-be godly, holy ones who seek to usurp the power of the dove for the heavy powers of the beast. Be wise and then be gentle.  Your gentleness will be the clue that you are being wise.  Only the wise are courageous and gentle.  The fool is cruel and cold, ruthless, cowardly and fearful.

As you enter into this new age, born today in your mind and imagination, you will receive the sword of love - of gentleness and warmth and compassion and creative hope - and you will become a most precious soldier for peace, for love and for the birthing of the new age.  Then, your reward will be life.  

When this old age has dimmed, you will live.  You will live in love and by love.  Once you learn the language of love, you will live in this new age.  If you don't or can't learn the language of love because the beast has hold of your soul through its cunning control, you won't see or live in the new age.  It is a spiritual age and you can make that choice.  Choose God, choose love, choose oneness and acceptance and allowing of others to be who they are.  I love you.  Choose the higher path.  It is the path to life.  The other is the path to destruction and death.

Next:  Awaken:  Beware wolves in sheep's clothing, Part 2, March 25, 2012