Purr-fectly Calm

“I have lived with many Zen masters — all of them cats.” Eckhart Tolle

“Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is for; to learn just that and nothing more. God’s Teacher cannot be satisfied with His teaching until it constitutes all your learning. He has not fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such a consistent learner that you learn only of Him. When this has happened, you will no longer need a teacher or time in which to learn.”
A Course in Miracles T-15.I.1:1-5

“Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.”
Mary Baker Eddy Science & Health Page 495:16-2

Freedom of Speech?

Long, long ago, when learning the meaning of free speech, I recall being taught that this freedom didn’t mean that we could say anything we wanted, no matter the harm it might cause others. For instance, we could not yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater, because it would cause a panic and people would be injured. Somewhere in the past few decades, we seem to have forgotten the do-no-harm maxim. People seem to think they can malign others and propose outlandish possibilities with no thought to the consequences. Is freedom of speech repeating lies until they seem like truth? And why do we not feel free to refute lies? Isn’t that freedom of speech, too? If you decide to teach your baby that “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength” [George Orwell] is that your right to do so? Shouldn’t someone tell you that is wrong? In much the same way these metaphysical teachings are showing us, thoughts and words are how we create our reality — even if it is not true. We make up illusionary worlds for ourselves all the time. But must we accept what others create for us?

“The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened, and thus made to hold, is one of the distortions on which the reverse of the Golden Rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable. However, nothing is less stable than an upside-down orientation. Nor can anything that holds it upside down be conducive to increased stability.”
A Course in Miracles T-1.V.6:4-7

“Against the fatal beliefs that error is as real as Truth, that evil is equal in power to good if not superior, and that discord is as normal as harmony, even the hope of freedom from the bondage of sickness and sin has little inspiration to nerve endeavor. When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 368:10-18

The Joy of an Uncharted Journey

Metafizzies’ Fearless Leader, Jim Young

I inherited some recordings from metaphysical meetings we held a number of years ago. One of the weekly meetings included a discussion where people told how they came to live in Eureka Springs. In this joyous conversation everyone had a different story, but there was a common denominator: they had not consciously made the decision, but in various ways had been led to be here. There was something at work which had nothing to do with human will. People talked about divine guidance, serendipity, blind luck — it all involved a will which had nothing to do with logic or human understanding. The events which led to us being in the same room talking about metaphysics, God, Life, Love — all the while laughing and openly expressing joy — seemingly came about by chance. Life is wonderful when we don’t have to know what’s going to happen next!

“The truly helpful are God’s miracle workers, whom I direct until we are all united in the joy of the Kingdom. I will direct you to wherever you can be truly helpful, and to whoever can follow my guidance through you.”
A Course in Miracles T-4.VII.8:7-8

“Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal. When the real is attained, which is announced by Science, joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Spiritual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle, and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead up to their divine origin, God, and to the spiritual sense of being.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 298:13-24

Thinking Makes It So …

Unknown location and photographer

A friend once said to me: “You can’t help what goes through your mind; it’s what you do with it that’s important.” As she always got upset when I talked about perception and how things are as we see them to be, I didn’t think I should tell her I disagreed with her statement. I do think we can keep rampant negative thoughts out of our head. I also think we can stop ourselves from flitting from one memory to another, flowing through a tangent of remembrances and idle repetitions. Through these spiritual studies, we are practicing training our mind away from blame and guilt, away from circular, meaningless thought, and hence allowing our function as the expression of divine Mind to flow through us, beautifully blossoming for others to share and experience. On this perfect day, I will work toward cleansing my thoughts of unnecessary chatter, while opening myself to my function as the reflection of Love!

“Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.”
A Course in Miracles W-189.7:1-5

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Science & Health Page ii:4

Healing Wounded Self-Esteem

Recent Full Moon

Photo courtesy of Don Matt

After watching the movie, Brad's Status, I'm seeing people in a different way. In this movie, Brad -- played by Ben Stiller -- is dissatisfied with his life. He thinks all his friends are better off than him, in every way. When he sees that is not true, he decides they're not even his friends, but only pretending. Everyone he meets, he imagines enriching his life, then quickly imagines them using him and throwing him away. He thinks his son is going to Harvard and he gets very excited thinking about his success; then he imagines his son making fun of him on national tv and he resents the imagined success. This goes on and on with every situation, until finally someone he has just met calls him on his self-pity. I won't tell you how it ends in case you want to see this film. But I did have the realization that many people I know feel exactly the same way as Brad. What causes some people to be happy with what's right in front of them, and others to want everything to be different? I don't know the cause, but I do know the cure: Gratitude for every little thing you see and do. I think being happy might just be a learned behavior. We tend to think of it as some sort of divine dispensation, but nothing can give you what you do not want. This movie has given me much to ponder. Namaste, my friends ...

“Imagined slights, remembered pain, past disappointments, perceived injustices and deprivations all enter into the special relationship, which becomes a way in which you seek to restore your wounded self-esteem. What basis would you have for choosing a special partner without the past? Every such choice is made because of something ‘evil’ in the past to which you cling, and for which must someone else atone.”
A Course in Miracles T-16.VII.1:3-5

"Many theories relative to God and man neither make man harmonious nor God lovable. The beliefs we commonly entertain about happiness and life afford no scatheless and permanent evidence of either. Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found only in divine Science."
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 323:5

Clearing Our Vision

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

A dear friend posted the following on social media: “My opinion of someone does not alter the truth of who they are.” I was thinking similar thoughts because I had recently been with a friend who limits herself, and others, by her negative opinions of them. It may be as simple as someone “setting her teeth on edge” or “rubbing her the wrong way”, but it made me sad because she is missing some wonderful interactions with others. It may even deprive a person she doesn’t like of what could be a life-changing experience, simply because she doesn’t want them involved in things she is involved with. No, it doesn’t change the truth of who they are, no matter what she thinks, but those of us who respect her feelings are in a tough spot at times. Thinking back in time, there are many situations such as this. I was once married to a man whose name I couldn’t say around my dad, or else he would go off on a tirade about how much he didn’t like him. I can’t presume to know how others should react when confronted with someone they don’t care to be around, but I’ll be watching my own thoughts in similar situations. 

“Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful and the holy. Do not forget this. The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another, because vision is still so dim. You can use your body best to help you enlarge your perception so you can achieve real vision, of which the physical eye is incapable. Learning to do this is the body’s only true usefulness.” 

A Course in Miracles T-1.VII.2:1-5

“Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations, which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we get clearer views of Principle. Break up cliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views of humanity” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 239:5-10

Friendship With Nature

 

Ruth Evans Art

“When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying  rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over.  Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent.  When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.    

“This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely.  Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.  

~ John O'Donohue: excerpt from Beauty

“Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens, — all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 240:2-9

“The core of the separation illusion lies simply in the fantasy of destruction of love’s meaning. And unless love’s meaning is restored to you, you cannot know yourself who share its meaning. Separation is only the decision not to know yourself. This whole thought system is a carefully contrived learning experience, designed to lead away from truth and into fantasy. Yet for every learning that would hurt you, God offers you correction and complete escape from all its consequences.” 

A Course in Miracles  T-16.V.15:1