Ten Qualities Which Can Change The Future

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

While Nate Hagens is primarily known for his studies about oil and other forms of energy, he has recently come up with a list of 10 qualities which can change the future. I found them all thought-provoking, but particularly loved this one. “Measure your worth in something other than money”. He say that more money tends to seek more money and it pulls everything into this monetary vortex, until nothing else is left on the scoreboard. From this acknowledgement, he asks us to measure our worth by things such as saving an animal’s life, mentoring a child, helping neighbors and friends. This may seem simplistic to those of us who have been doing this for years, but to someone who believes their worth is found in what they have and how much money they make, it is a revolutionary way of thinking.

“Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet the demands of the affections, and should never weigh against the better claims of intellect, goodness, and virtue.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 57:15-18

“A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor’s worth simultaneously.”
—A Course in Miracles T-1.I.18:1-4

I Am An Eternal Reflection Of Love

Photo credit: Steve Shogren

Why can’t we all just be happy? I’ve heard this question voiced numerous times, and I’ve probably asked it a time or two myself. People may tell you that poverty and abuse keep many people from being happy. On the flip side, what of people who have everything a person could want, but are terribly unhappy? When I was a teenager, a friend of the family had a series of unfortunate events occur in her life. In a three-year period, her husband passed on, their house burned down, and then her daughter was in a car accident which left her in a coma for over a year before she died. And she had also lost an infant daughter years before. This woman lived well into her 80s, always happily helping others, and I was told she died with a smile on her face. At the time, I wondered how she did it. I see now that she knew the open secret of Life. With each loved one who passes on, with each beloved animal I’ve known and loved through the years, something is growing more certain within me: they haven’t gone anywhere. Never born, never dying. If there was a beginning, then there must be an end. Seeing myself as a blessed eternal creation of Love brings me joy!

“Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness. And nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember that made your heart sing with joy has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. For you will see the Son of God. You will behold the beauty the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and which He thanks the Father for. He was created to see this for you, until you learned to see it for yourself. And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.”
—A Course in Miracles T-17.II.1:1-9

“As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God. The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 516:2-8

Inward Listening

Art by Catrin Welz-Stein

It appears that many people want others to tell them what to do. We seem to flock to those who are willing (even eager) to guide us through the maze of life. Perhaps the reason is, if we’re doing what someone else tells us, then we can blame them if it doesn’t work out! I’m only partly joking about that. Sometimes we fear making decisions for ourselves because we don’t think we are informed enough to do so. At that point, we either throw up our hands and don’t do anything, or ask someone else what they’re going to do, so we can do the same. Perhaps we don’t trust our own inner guidance, because we have so often mistaken our busy little mind for the calm voice of divine Mind. We are told in Workbook Lesson #49 of A Course in Miracles: “God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day.” Let’s not expect a big, booming human voice to come down from above, but a still, small certainty in the deepness of ourselves, leading us to the expression of Life, Truth, and Love!

“It is quite possible to listen to God’s Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. It is the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world’s laws. It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain.”
—A Course in Miracles W-49.1:1-4

"Infinite Mind creates and governs all, from the mental molecule to infinity. This divine Principle of all expresses Science and art throughout creation, and the immortality of man and the universe."
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 507:24-28

Reinterpreting Material Vision

Not a real photo

“Gut feelings" are often discounted as being invalid, for numerous reasons. Some say they are simply paranoid thoughts, others may think of them as wishful thinking, but few think of them as divine vision. In this familiar world of ours, we must reinterpret everything we see. Looking at our surroundings with human eyes, hearing with mortal ears, brings to us a false projection of reality. Discord and inharmony are but misinterpretations we are perceiving. Through right identification and reinterpretation, we see with a pure vision. As an example, when we see train tracks coming together in the distance, we immediately reinterpret that into the truth of the situation. We know that those tracks aren't coming together, and that it will not be dangerous to travel on the train which carries us toward that end. We have been taught to translate many similar situations, and we do not fear them. The metaphysical studies we've embarked upon are doing the same thing: teaching us to recognize misidentification and translate it into Truth. Translating our erroneous thoughts is a present possibility!

“As you share my unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to my voice, learn to undo error and act to correct it. The power to work miracles belongs to you. I will provide the opportunities to do them, but you must be ready and willing.”
—A Course in Miracles T-1.III.1:6-8

“The material senses and human conceptions would translate spiritual ideas into material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic God, instead of infinite Principle, — in other words, divine Love, — is the father of the rain, ‘who hath begotten the drops of dew,’ who bringeth ‘forth Mazzaroth in his season,’ and guideth ‘Arcturus with his sons.’”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 257: 15-21

We Are More

Art by Jane Newland

 “Don't abandon yourself. Not when you're sick. Not when you're tired. Not when you've lost the thread, the thought, or the thing you thought defined you. 

You will die many times in one life and create yourself anew. This is natural. This is a gift. I've died a few times now here in this world. The person I was: gone. 

Throw that older skin into the water. Give it to the sky. Step into what wants to emerge now. Nothing can hold you back when you are willing to be yourself.”

Jeannette Enchinias

"[We are] more than a material form with a mind inside, which must escape from its environments in order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God."

—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 258:9-12

“Perception is not an attribute of God. His is the realm of knowledge. Yet He has created the Holy Spirit as the Mediator between perception and knowledge. Without this link with God, perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your mind. With this link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will lead to knowledge. That is its function as the Holy Spirit sees it. Therefore, that is its function in truth.”

—A Course in Miracles W-43.1:1-7

The Appropriate Non-Response

Once at a party, someone leaned in close to me and said something derogatory about another person. Remembering Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias when she said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, come and sit by me”, I wanted to say just the opposite and ask this person to go away! But I also wanted to see her comments through the light of Love and interpret them purely, rather than through my personal judgment of the words. So I just smiled at her. Wondering how to respond to her, I reached out to Holy Spirit, but nothing came to thought. Rather than nervously babbling something meaningless, or condemning her as I am wont to do, I remained silent. This experience helped me understand that a response is not always necessary. Seeing them in the light of Love seemed more appropriate than condemning them. And it felt good, too. 

“The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the windowpane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality — much error — in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 295:16-24

“In order to see, you must recognize that light is within, not without. You do not see outside yourself, nor is the equipment for seeing outside you. An essential part of this equipment is the light that makes seeing possible. It is with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance.”
—A Course in Miracles W-44.2:

A Revolution of Truth

In a world where we are being fed lies, it’s extremely difficult to figure out what is truth. Media spreads deception and distrust, dividing people in ways which seem irreparable. Bias doesn’t frighten me, but intentional lies do. Many of us remember the early days of television, bringing with it a new type of advertising, and consumerism became flagrant. It has reached an apex now, in which nearly everything we hear and see is designed to sell us something. We must continue to be vigilant in what we allow into our thoughts, not only for our own good, but for the collective. Repeating stories which create divisions through feelings of superiority or inferiority, that’s playing the game which has been created for us. It’s important to use our education, our intuition, our spiritual knowledge, every bit of common sense we still have, to discern truth. A Christian Science treatment is often referred to as “knowing the Truth”. It is in reference to knowing the Truth of our being, not the beliefs we’ve come to think of as facts. We need not be the victim of propaganda or other forms of hypnosis. “Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach me”. This statement from Mary Baker Eddy is all we need to keep in mind. When we are filled with Love, there is no room for anything else.

"The human mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. ... It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity."
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 128

“In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved. In conflict there can be no answer and no resolution, for its purpose is to make no resolution possible, and to ensure no answer will be plain. A problem set in conflict has no answer, for it is seen in different ways. And what would be an answer from one point of view is not an answer in another light. You are in conflict. Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at all, for conflict has no limited effects. Yet if God gave an answer there must be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done.”
—A Course in Miracles T-27.IV.1:1-7