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Karen Ann Berg-Raftakis – Worshipping False Gods

September 5, 2013

Worshipping False Gods,

by Karen Ann Berg-Raftakis

“But to you who are strong enough to bear it, I say you need no mediator between you and Me, for we are One already. If you can but know it, you can come direct and at once to Me in consciousness.” Joseph Benner, The Impersonal Life

I’ve noticed lately that there’s been a pattern in my life of holding strict preconceived notions of what genuine spiritual teachers should be. I’ve always believed they needed to be extremely knowledgeable and wise, patient, calm, kind, always loving and peaceful, unambitious and totally unconcerned with material things. Equating age with wisdom, I also felt that spiritual teachers should be much older than myself. Needless to say, I’ve had to re-examine these beliefs quite often over the years.

Years ago when I attended church, one evening at Bible Class I asked the pastor a couple of straightforward questions and he couldn’t answer them. It was soon apparent that on certain spiritual subjects I knew more than he did, which was fairly disconcerting. Another minister who I was very close to surprised me with the revelation that he struggled with alcohol addiction. “But he’s a minister, how could this be??” I naively thought to myself at the time. Yet another pastor I knew often displayed a disturbingly greedy side to his personality during his short tenure at the church. Years later, after joining a different spiritual organization, I became very impressed with a leader there but was soon left feeling quite disillusioned after her duplicity within the association was revealed.

Now in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed spiritual teachers going off on rants about other teachers or teachings and purposely starting arguments on Facebook and in other Internet forums. I’ve also observed highly respected leaders becoming very defensive with those who didn’t agree with them. All of this has provoked in me a certain level of distress and from time to time, I would think to myself, “Whatever happened to peace, love and understanding?” “How can these people who I’ve looked up to, who have provided me with so much spiritual comfort and wisdom over the years behave in this manner?” Fortunately, I think I’ve found the answer.

Joseph Benner, channeling the Divine in his book The Impersonal Life, states, “Wonder not at the sometimes wonderful words of Truth that come from mouths apparently unfit to speak them and comprehending not their meaning; nor at the fact that simple followers oftentimes awaken faster than and grow beyond their teachers. I Who dwell within both teacher and follower choose different conditions and provide different ways for the expression of My Attributes in each different Soul, fitting each into just the time and place where they can complement and help each other the best; thus uniting all into the most harmonious expression of My Idea possible under the circumstances.”

In other words, despite what we may think at the time, everything is perfect. Benner says that most of our disillusionment occurs so that we will turn within instead of without for Truth. I think this makes sense, after watching enough teachers and gurus fall off their pedestals the only one left to turn to is yourself. We’ve all heard time and time again that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, so why do we look without so much? It’s a shame we don’t trust ourselves more and the innate divine wisdom we all have. I think when we all begin to do this and stop “worshipping false Gods” then we will be much happier.

How may I fix my mind on God? How ought we to live in the world?

August 17, 2013

Questioner: How, sir, may I fix my mind on God?

Sri Ramakrishna: Repeat God’s name and sing His glories, and now and then visit God’s devotees and holy men. The mind cannot dwell on God if it is immersed day and night in worldliness, in worldly duties and responsibilities; it is most necessary to go into solitude now and then and think of God. To fix the mind on God is very difficult, in the beginning, unless one practices meditation in solitude. When a tree is young it should be fenced all around; otherwise it may be destroyed by cattle.

There are three ways of meditating: think of God while doing your duties, or meditate on Him in a secluded corner of your house, or meditate on Him in a wood. And you should always discriminate between the Real and the unreal: God alone is real, the Eternal Substance; all else is unreal, that is, impermanent. By discriminating thus, one should shake off impermanent objects from the mind.

Questioner: How ought we to live in the world?

Sri Ramakrishna: Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live with all — with wife and children, father and mother — and serve them. Treat them as if they were very dear to you, but know in your heart of hearts that they do not belong to you.

A maidservant in the house of a rich man performs all the household duties, but her thoughts are fixed on her own home in her native village. She brings up her master’s children as if they were her own. She even speaks of them as “my Rama” or “my Hari.” But in her own mind she knows very well that they do not belong to her at all.

The tortoise moves about in the water. But can you guess where her thoughts are? There on the bank, where her eggs are lying. Do all your duties in the world, but keep your mind on God.

If you enter the world without first cultivating love for God, you will be entangled more and more. You will be overwhelmed with its danger, its grief, its sorrows. And the more you think of worldly things, the more you will be attached to them.

First rub your hands with oil and then break open the jack-fruit; otherwise they will be smeared with its sticky milk. First secure the oil of divine love and then set your hands to the duties of the world.

But one must go into solitude to attain this divine love. To get butter from milk you must let it set into curd in a secluded spot: if it is too much disturbed, milk won’t turn into curd. Next, you must put aside all other duties, sit in a quiet spot, and churn the curd. Only then do you get butter.

Further, by meditating on God in solitude the mind acquires knowledge, dispassion, and devotion. But the very same mind goes downward if it dwells in the world. In the world one only thinks of “worries” and “gold.”

The world is water and the mind, milk. If you pour milk into water they become one; you cannot find the pure milk any more. But turn the milk into curd and churn it into butter. Then, when that butter is placed in water, it will float. So, practice spiritual discipline in solitude and obtain the butter of knowledge and love. Even if you keep that butter in the water of the world the two will not mix. The butter will float.

Together with this you must practice discrimination. “Woman” and “gold” are impermanent. God is the only Eternal Substance. What does a man get with money? Food, clothes, and a dwelling-place — nothing more. You cannot realize God with its help. Therefore money can never be the goal of life. That is the process of discrimination. Do you understand?

Questioner: Yes, sir.

Sri Ramakrishna: Consider: What is there in money or in a beautiful body? Discriminate and you will find that even the body of the most beautiful woman consists of bones, flesh, fat and other disagreeable things. Why should a man give up God and direct his attention to such things? Why should he forget God for their sake?

Questioner: Is it possible to see God?

Sri Ramakrishna: Yes, certainly. Living in solitude now and then, repeating God’s name and singing His glories, and discriminating between the Real and the unreal — these are the means to employ to see Him.

Questioner: Under what conditions does one see God?

Sri Ramakrishna: Cry to the Lord with an intensely yearning heart and you will certainly see Him. People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and children. They swim in tears for money. But who weeps for God? Cry to Him with a real cry.

Longing is like the rosy dawn. After the dawn out comes the sun. Longing is followed by the vision of God.

God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined fore of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child’s attraction for its mother, and the husband’s attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions, then one can attain Him.

The point is, to love God even as the mother loves her child, the chaste wife her husband, and the worldly man his wealth. Join together these three forces of love, these three powers of attraction, and direct them all to God. Then you will certainly see Him.

It is necessary to pray to Him with a longing heart. The kitten knows only how to call its mother, crying, “Mew, mew!” It remains satisfied wherever its mother puts it. And the mother cat puts the kitten sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes on the floor, and sometimes on the bed. When it suffers it cries only, “Mew, mew!” That’s all it knows. But as soon as the mother hears this cry, wherever she may be, she comes to the kitten.”

~ From The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Cindy Teevens – Alchemy of Love

August 17, 2013

Cindy Teevens talks about “The Joyful Way to Radical Forgiveness Without Healing the Past or Controlling Thoughts”.

Cindy has a radical approach to forgiveness and realizing that what you thought has never really happened. Cindy uses a method she calls the Alchemy of Love.

Six years after the violent suicide of her father, in one moment her own intense suffering was swapped for amazing joy, altering her life permanently. Happiness and peace became her predominant states. Laughter exploded at the simplicity and power of it, and tears of gratitude flowed. Understandings began to come about how we have been living backwards, how we have mistaken the outside for the inside, and how we have tethered ourselves to the uncontrollable winds of change in the midst of freedom—and how we can return to truth, sanity, and peace.

Listen to this talk

Accepting Change, by Karen Ann Berg-Raftakis

August 12, 2013

There’s a music video by Madonna called “Ray of Light” which I’ve always liked. It features very rapidly changing, flashing pictures of people all over the world going about their everyday lives, “living”, the sequences running so fast that the effect is almost dizzying. There have been a few instances this past year when similar images of time-lapsed video have popped into my mind and I’ve been left with the impression that Life is just a giant constant birthing, growing, evolving, moving, deteriorating, dying “happening” and there’s nothing we can do about it. We watch the rapidly shifting landscapes appear and disappear as this moving train we’re on called Life speeds by. We can never really take in or actually absorb anything, for it is all going by at the speed of light. It’s all just happening and we’re just part of the process.

As soon as we’re born, we quickly learn that nothing ever stays the same and yet we spend most of our lives trying to ensure that it does. For example, “My family should never move”, “My circle of friends needs to remain the same”, “My husband is not supposed to change” or similar thoughts appear in our consciousness from time to time. We even become annoyed or angry when people simply change their minds. “You said you wanted steak for dinner”, “You promised we’d go on vacation this year”, “I thought you never wanted kids” In politics, we even disdainfully call these individuals “flip-floppers”. However, vows, contracts, and promises are all formed in the context of hoped for permanence and then later we wonder why so many of these are broken. It appears that anything which has the semblance of standing still in time perpetuates the illusion that it is real and permanent. It also helps keep our idea of ourselves as separate individuals safe and secure. That is why sudden, abrupt drastic changes often make us feel like the rug has been pulled out from under us. We become agitated, upset, depressed or angry. We expect and demand that everything remains as it is, static. This is true sometimes even when things aren’t going so well. Say you lose a job that you despise. Even though you don’t miss the job itself, you may miss the stability, financial and otherwise that it brought you and so even losing something you hate can bring you grief. Many of us just fear any kind of change at all. It seems as if we really do live by that popular idiom, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”.

It’s easy for some to say, “Just go with the flow” when life quickly becomes a series of twists and turns and sharp detours, but how exactly do we do that? We can either resist change or surrender to it and as we know, resisting is much more painful. Remembering that we are NOT our specific situations or circumstances might help. These things which seem to be happening “to us” are just occurrences in this dance called Life, which allows ALL things. It’s interesting, my parents like to go on these motorcoach “mystery” tours from time to time, where they don’t tell you what your destination will be. You never know where you’re going or what you’re going to be doing each day of the tour. There is no itinerary. Sometimes that is how I like to look at life, as one GIANT mystery tour. How exciting to not know where you’re going to end up day after day. What a grand adventure! My parents trust that after it’s all said and done they will have had a great time and so they look forward to these trips. Embracing the mystery of life and the fact that change will always be a part of it, is important to our well-being. Having faith that in reality “All is Well” no matter what, can help to alleviate our suffering during those times that chaos seems to be reigning over our lives.

Joe Wolfe – Letting go of the thinking mind

August 2, 2013

Joe Wolfe, writer, author, speaker and teacher of A Course in Miracles speaks about letting go of the thinking mind.

Listen to this audio

Joe is the founder of Spirit Light Outreach and sends Books and magazines (like Miracles Magazine) to people who need them most. They deliver them to prisoners, 12 steppers, aged and the physically impaired who are unable to acquire them on their own. Course in Miracles Society donates copies the 1,300 page edition of ACIM, which are sent to prisoners.

ACIM, LOO, DU, and Thiaoouba by Larry Seyer

July 23, 2013

(Article by Larry Seyer, www.larryseyer.com)

I was asked to explain how I could justify the seemingly apparent paradoxes in “A Course in Miracles”, “The Law of One”, and “The Disappearance of the Universe”.

My answer will be based upon the following assumptions:

Truth is a constant and does not change.
All thinking is judgement and does not necessarily agree with Knowledge.
Our True Nature is spirit and physical experience is temporary and illusory.
All seemingly real physical objects including the individual elements they seem to be composed of, are illusion and do not actually exist.
Life is everywhere and everywhen – and everything is alive. There is only Life. There is no death.
There is only One Mind.
There is only One of us here.

Given those assumptions, we can see that the our True Natural state is spirit. Spirit is a constant and is never changing although one can have experiences that SEEM to change.

Physical existence is a constantly changing illusion that is kept alive in our mind via vibration-movement (aka thoughts-judgement) – i.e. NOT stillness.

Physical objects seem to exist in our density, and also in other densities. They can also seem to exist in other dimensions – both time and space.

Therefore any physical manifestation used as a vehicle for spirit to have an experience is temporary and is illusion – it is a dream.

A physical body is not our home – no matter if that body appears to be a human being living on Earth, a grey alien from Orion, a rock on top of a mountain, a Star, a Galaxy, or any other seemingly real physical object. Even though we may be able to have an experience of ‘being’ that object temporarily.

The Universe is alive and so are the Galaxies, Stars, and Planets that seem to be in It (because EVERYTHING is alive). But what makes the Universe appear to exist at all?

If you study “A Course in Miracles”, “The Law of One”, or some other spiritual teachings, you will find that those teachings proclaim that judgement makes illusion – and illusion disappears when one forgives.

The type of forgiveness I am referring to is NOT the commonly understood definition that many religions teach.

Many religions teach a type of forgiveness that is commonly demonstrated as follows:

“Someone has done something wrong, but I’m gonna let it go.”

If you look at the world’s definition of ‘forgiveness’, you can fairly easily see that it is merely judgement masquerading as forgiveness.

True Forgiveness can be demonstrated as follows:

“Everyone is completely innocent and NO ONE has done anything wrong – EVER!
Everything is perfect all the time and there are no accidents.”

It is interesting to note that “A Course in Miracles” presents the idea that forgiveness is the key requirement for breaking the cycle of birth and death. In fact, I have often said that “A Course in Miracles” could have easily been named “A Course in Forgiveness”.

In “The Disappearance of the Universe”, Gary Renard makes the point that the ONLY way to stop the cycle of reincarnation is through forgiveness.

Why do you think forgiveness is so important in “A Course in Miracles” and DU? Why do you think “The Law of One” states that “forgiveness stops the wheel of karma“?

It is because judgment makes illusion and forgiveness releases judgement!

Judgement is the tool we use to keep the illusion of separateness alive in our mind.

It is the reason we see what we see. It is the reason the Universe appears to be real. It is the reason there appears to be a ‘me’ and a ‘you’.

Once you release ALL judgement (i.e. forgive EVERYTHING), and ultimately when you are ready to release your attachment to the idea of a ‘self’ that exists separate from anything else, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE ONENESS WITH EVERYTHING!!!

Why?

Because you ARE Everything!

There is nothing wrong with experiencing the physical as real. Just as there is nothing wrong with believing a lie to be true. And thankfully, Truth is not affected by our beliefs at all.

Neither is our True Nature (which is spirit) affected by our belief system. Our True Nature is a constant and is never changing. But our EXPERIENCE is one of constant change!

Why is that?

Instead of giving you the answer, I’m going to introduce you to a book that may be helpful in recognizing the similarities between “A Course in Miracles” and “The Law of One”. It has been a wonderful ‘tie in’ book for me that may provide the answer for you once you read it enough times. (it will take at least three times reading through it to completely absorb what it is really saying)

It is not channeled material like “A Course in Miracles” and “The Law of One”. Instead, it is a first person account of a 10-day period of experiences that Michel Desmarquet had in 1987.

The book is called “Thiaoouba Prophecy” and you can download a PDF file of it for free at http://www.thiaoouba.com. It is totally and completely free. You can order it (for free) on their website if you want.

I am now on my 7th time reading this 186 page document. I do believe it is completely true. And I believe that the book needs to be read by EVERYONE who is interested in awakening to the Truth of Who they are – although I will warn you that there are some ideas presented in the book that you will not want to believe on the first couple of readings.

It has clarified many things for me. And it has reminded me of the importance of meditation and the reason we are having this experience of living on planet Earth at this time.

Recognizing that “all physical objects are symbols and are therefore illusory”, is a concept required in order to see common principles presented in all four books (ACIM, LOO, DU and Thiaoouba). This includes Planet Earth, Galaxies, Stars, and ultimately your body.

But how does judgement make the universe and how does forgiveness make it disappear?

Because our beliefs are all powerful. “As you believe, so it is for you” is a quote attributed to Jesus in the bible. And it is completely true.

If we believe someone is ‘guilty’ then we have the experience that there is a ‘me’ and a ‘something else’ that is guilty; because we project the guilt ONTO that which we have denied!

What have we denied? We have denied that we are them! Now there seems to be twoness instead of only oneness.

BAM! There is the separation experience instantly!

Judgment keeps that illusion alive in our mind through our belief collapsing infinite potential into what we ‘expect’ to see thus making the physical appear to be ‘real’. It ‘makes’ an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ to satisfy the belief you have. Infinite potential then appears to become finite objects limited by the belief you have placed upon them.

However, have you ever asked yourself why a One Infinite Creator would want or need anything since it already IS EVERYTHING?

I have. And when you ask that question and are willing to suspend all belief, and are willing to accept what your Higher Self is willing to share with you, you will be amazed at the answer!

There is a REASON for the ‘veil of forgetfulness’. There is a reason apparent ‘evil’ is allowed to exist. There is a reason for EVERYTHING! There is also order within chaos.

“The world was over a long time ago.” is a quote from “A Course in Miracles”. This idea was something I could not grasp for many years. But after asking HS for an explanation, I got one. And the answer I got I share many times during my talks with David Wilcock at our Divine Cosmos Conferences.

If you are interested in what HS gives me, you can download my podcasts (for free) from my website where I discuss this and many more topics here:

https://larryseyer.com/live/

So hopefully, I have convinced you to ‘go within’ and find the answers for yourself. All I can share with you is my interpretation of what HS gives me. But if you go within, you will get answers that are PERFECT for you!

You ALREADY KNOW what the answers are! But you have ‘forgotten’ (or ‘hidden’ from yourself) Who you Truly Are.

You have filled your mind with questions, doubt, and a false belief that you already know things and you want to be right above all else. But if you are not willing to be shown the Truth and have a false belief, how can you possibly have room for the Truth in your Heart when you’ve already filled it with a false belief?

Wouldn’t you first need to be willing to be wrong?

Have you ever asked yourself if you would rather be right or happy? What if being happy meant you were completely wrong about everything you believed in up to now? Would you be willing to give up your beliefs for Truth above all?

Even if you’re not, it doesn’t matter. There is no score keeping. There is no game to ‘win’ here. The REAL you cannot be harmed in this game of ‘false identity’ being ‘human’ for a while.

You will ALWAYS be You and you will ALWAYS be perfect!

You only need to quiet the mind (i.e. return to stillness – no vibrations), be still an instant and go home, and be willing to suspend your expectations and beliefs. Your ‘higher self’ which is also known as ‘Holy Spirit’ or spirit guides knows the Truth about You and will give you the answers you seek just as soon as you’re willing to listen with an open heart.

~ Larry Seyer presents in our online gathering room each Tuesday morning from 10-10:30 am ET. Please come into the room and listen or listen live on internet radio.

Magdi Em Be

July 16, 2013

Magdi Em Be guides us to look at perception carefully, with awareness, so that we notice there is no separation between what is perceived and the perceiver. Listen to this 40 minute audio.

Contemplative thoughts written by Magdi are featured regularly on
Regina’s Awakening Together Inspirational Feed in Facebook.