oneness

May 01 2010

I AM

In Exodus 3:14, Moses asks God what name shall I use for you when speaking to the children of Israel. God replies, “I am AHIAH ASHAR HIGH (The Living God, The Sovereign God). Just say I AM ( AHIYA) has sent you.” Today we are addressing the I AM Energy of All That Is. This can only be a tiny sliver of light on this subject however, hopefully enticing you to seek more.

The number one issue we as humans have with God is our thinking. We think we are separate from God. To the contrary, however, we are One with God, we simply do not have this Oneness in our consciousness. As you read this piece, keep reminding yourself, I AM One with All That Is/God. It will keep the familiar thoughts of being separate at a distance.

The I AM Energy is eternal, all loving and whole in the fullest sense of the word. This energy is within every person in body for it is the core of who we are. However, if we are to know of it, grow it, live by it, we must have some guidance and examples of how to do that. Jesus offered one way to know more about this. He said as recorded in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” There are millions in our world who do just that, follow Jesus. However, this statement, “I am the light of the world” could just as well be said by one named Fritz or Ismelda, Lauren or Machi and have powerful presence if they too knew they were One with God. Jesus resolutely knew he was One with All That Is and that is the source of the power of his declaration.

This statement by Jesus however does not mean that he is the only light of the world, that he alone is only way to learn about the I AM Energy. This exclusivity in our views of religion needs to shift. We are all of the same Creator, different sparks from the Flame of Life, different paths given from the same Source. There have been many, many ways we have been called to know of the I AM Energy within. The pathway of the Sufis, the Kabbalah, the Vedanta Sutras are all ways to cultivate a deeper personal relationship with the Energy of Creation. The issue is that millions do not go deeply enough into their chosen pathways to develop their own relationship with All That Is.

I might have lost it, but it has never been lost by Shirin K. A. Winiger

Why is this? I think perhaps because it takes a level of commitment to wholeness we are generally not ready to make. In other words, it is easier to follow the dogma, rules and expectation of a specific faith than it is to develop our own relationship with God. It feels easier to focus on all the externalities of life on Earth than it is to go within and speak with God. To develop our own knowing of All That Is, we must be in Silence, pray, ask for forgiveness, let go of our ego and embrace uncertainty in all things with the energy of positive expectation on a daily basis. Further, we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are One with God/All That Is/Great I AM.

Each of us is Divine. We each have that spark of Divinity within. However, we can choose not to seek it, know it or develop it and still live on this Earth. It is as if we have a deep pool of knowing when we are out of body and when we come into body, we have to seek the stillness and connection with God if we want to fully manifest our Divine Beings while in body. It is a practice, a way of Being, a pathway we have to choose. With this pathway comes more Peace, more Balance, more Divine Harmony, Dynamism, Freedom and Creativity. For these characteristics and many more are characteristics of Divine Presence, Brahman or the Unified Field. They are our birthright if we choose them.

If we want to actualize our I AM Energy we have to do two things simultaneously. One is to claim the I AM Energy for ourselves. The second is to train our mind to return again and again to wholeness, love, forgiveness and humility. In this way, the I AM Energy can be fully actualized in our lives and all the positive characteristics of Divine Grace become present in each of our lives. These statements can help us begin to embrace our I AM Energy and call it forth in our lives.

I AM the loving expression of God manifest in my body.

I AM One with All That Is.

I AM the Wholeness and Peace I seek.

I AM the mighty Flame of God’s Divine Presence.

I AM expansive consciousness, loving all in my pathway.

Put one or two of these statements which speak to you some place you will see them every day. Speak them out loud frequently for thirty days and your consciousness will have the chance to change its pattern of perception.

The doorway into the I AM Energy is paved by consistent, loving effort over time. This is one way you can open this pathway more powerfully to receive all the blessings of being One with All That Is. This knowing is already deeply embedded in your full consciousness, it just needs an invitation to be more accessible in your present body or daily consciousness.

Feb 18 2010

Unifying Prayer

Over many years, I have learned to use a particular type of prayer for spiritual healing. My prayers for wholeness have evolved and changed, continually seeking to capture the inherent power of Divine Presence.

I call this specific type of prayer, unifying prayer. Unifying prayer differs from intercessory prayer, centering prayer or supplication prayer, in that unifying prayer specifically emerges from knowing that we are One with All That Is. Unifying prayer calls upon our own Divine Resources, within a sacred space, working with other Divine Energy Beings for the purpose of calling forth Divine Grace for a person, place or situation.

Unifying prayer comes from

knowing that we and God, are One
knowing that Right Relationship with All That Is is our natural state
knowing that seeming imbalances can be transformed or shifted through Divine Grace

Healing comes from Divine Grace. Healing does not come from medicine, our prayers, surgery or therapy. All these things do have their place in healing but are really ways through which Divine Grace is made available through caring individuals in the course of one’s healing. This is a very important distinction. Healing comes from Divine Grace, the energy of Divine Presence being received by those needing healing. Many, many healing modalities can be employed to enable Divine Grace to be received.

If medicine healed in and of itself, all people with a cold would be able to take the exact same medicines and all would heal, every time. Because healing comes from Divine Grace, we have to receive this energy to heal. We may not even be consciously aware of receiving Divine Grace but that is what leads to healing. Generally imbalances manifesting as illness in the body come from blocked energy we humans have created, held onto, nurtured, etc., which disconnects us from Divine Grace. When medicine, prayers, therapy help us release blocked energy, we have the opportunity to reconnect with Divine Presence.

Divine Grace is Love in action. Every time I work with someone who is out of balance physically or mentally, I begin by opening Sacred Space so that I can join with other Divine Energy Beings to work together to call forth Divine Presence for a person, place or situation.

This is what I say:

I call forth my I Am Self ( the part of me that is wholly Divine) , the Ascended Masters, the Angelic Host, the Divine Cosmic Light Beings of the Universe, the Nature Intelligences, Divine Ancestors and Divine Physicians to help me hold this Sacred Healing and Wisdom Circle.

Because I am of Divine Essence like all beings, I have the authority, right and power to call such a circle into existence for the purpose of healing. I imagine that together we are very powerful. Together, all that I call forth is amplified by the Divine Beings working with me. Further, when I listen, the exact wording needed for a person or situation often emerges from the combined knowing of Divine Beings. Still though, in all situations and in all ways, Divine Grace does the re-balancing, the healing, the pacing of the energy shifts, creation and implementation of the plan. I simply call Divine Grace forth, knowing that balance, wholeness and peace is the natural state of bodies, places and situations.

Unifying Prayer begins with the knowing that God and I are One, inseparably, for all eternity. This is the aspect of unifying prayer which sets it apart from all other prayer. This type of prayer emerges out of this knowing of Oneness with all things. Therefore, in unifying prayer, the Lord’s Prayer for example becomes, you give us this day our daily bread, you forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. You lead us not into temptation and you deliver us from evil. In the use of this wording, we are affirming the power of the Great Oneness/God from our sense of knowing of the Oneness ourselves.

Divine Grace, we call forth the Sacred Flame from within Emil to consume the blocked spiritual and fear energy manifesting as depression and self-inflicted pain. This unifying prayer restates our connection with All That Is by affirming that the Sacred Flame is within Emil. The prayer names fear and blocked energy as the reasons behind the manifestation of the imbalances in his life. No power is given to the imbalances. The act of calling forth the Sacred Flame itself is an act of Oneness, recognizing that all people can call forth the sacred flame form of God.

God please help Emil because he is a good person and has lost his way. This prayer assumes that the person praying, God, and Emil are all separate from one another. These words give the impression that God needs to be informed that Emil is a good person. Also, inherent in this prayer is an assumption that help for Emil is not being given by God at the present time. Further, this prayer bases the request for help on a judgement that because Emil is a good person, he deserves help. This stance goes against the Divine order which again and again states that the Highest Good is always what is being desired for us.

I see the Light in Emil and call for the highest benevolent outcome of his current circumstances. This is a unifying prayer affirming that the Light, a form of God, is within Emil. Further, the specifics of the outcome are left to All That Is. However, our calling this energy into this dimension from the realm of unformed energy is very powerful and supports the presence of Divine Grace for Emil.

We lift Emil into the Light and pray for his complete recovery from depression. This is not a unifying prayer because it talks about lifting Emil into “the Light” meaning that Emil is now, out of the Light. We are always in Light even when we are manifesting energy which is out of balance. Further, depression is spoken about here as a condition with its own power rather than as a condition which is temporarily present due to blocked energy which can always be transformed by Divine Grace.

Our words are powerful healing tools. Use prayers which reflect the power we are working with. Make certain that your prayers affirm the Oneness, All Power, All Knowing, Omnipresent characteristics of God. When the words correctly and powerfully reflect the Truth that is God, they are charged with a power beyond human means. They then carry the charge of the power of the Great Grace to heal.

Feb 05 2010

Ordinary Mystic; Part 1

Presented to CommUnity on the Hill Congregation*

Washington, D.C. , January 24, 2010

I am an ordinary mystic. This means I spend loads of time in Silence and in communication with all forms of Divine Presence and I also live in society. From the outside I usually look pretty normal in the clothes I wear and the company I keep. I have a home in the suburbs. I have been happily married 37 years and have two sons in their 20s. I have gradually come to embrace my ordinary nature and my mystical nature publicly though the knowing has been inside a long time.

I realized one day that I was beginning to really feel that God and I were One. I felt it deeply and uncompromisingly in meditation. From those feeling I began to see all other distinctions about who I was, what I was doing, why I was here, and what I was facing, begin to melt away. Therefore, the seeming contradictions I had silently harbored of the mystic and the mother, or the mystic and the wife or the next door neighbor were really not contradictions, but merely different views of the whole that is me.

What I mean by God and I are One is this. The Love, Passion, Power, Knowing and Light of God is the same Light of which I am made. There is no difference except in my seeing this as indeed true. I now feel this knowing has been true all my life and perhaps all my other lives as well. And it is true for everyone in body regardless of what is going on in our lives. We simply have to release the deep fears we have and call in Spirit to be with our Deepest Companion and Friend, The Beloved.

It is possible that I may have done this ordinary mystic thing before. It feels much better now that both the ordinary me and mystical me have found each other. Before this time, I had lots and lots of indications that major parts of my life were out of balance. I had chronic, deeply serious back pain for 18 years. I spent a lot of time defending myself whether I was leading a workshop or managing a dorm of 55 adolescent girls. I spent a great deal of time, it seems to me now, getting angry at even the tiniest challenge to my right to be fully independent, competent and powerful as a woman. I more than once laid into my brothers or my dad, men of the deep South, if they even hinted that I was “just a girl”.

I did not suffer fools gladly. In fact, I embraced confrontation on a regular basis. But all this was very wearing. It was not fun and it was certainly not in balance. So, there was a warrior spirit alive and well within me long before there was a peaceful spirit revealed. Perhaps that had to be, so that I could even find a mystical path. For the signs to introspection are not easily seen, nor culturally supported, nor readily embraced by most humans in body. However, for whatever reason, I was pulled into a greater and greater balance in part, a great part, by my eldest son.

Our first child, a son, came as the happiest, smiling person one could imagine. We even called him smiley face, a lot.

When he was 10 he had what was considered routine surgery for a benign cyst in his jaw, discovered during the process of getting braces. That began our odyssey into the world of medicine, fear, pain, loss, trauma and anguish. When he came out of the surgery, he was a completely different person energetically. He had lost his smile and many other aspects of his personality. He was unable to study, focus, go to school, go to sleep or interact with anyone at all, in the way he had before. He had so loved his lego creations and had spent hours creating happily by himself. After the surgery, he would sit and simply not be able to create anything. He was glum and withdrawn.

The surgeon declared the surgery a full success. We knew differently however. We were the ones sitting with him as he cried and raged 2-4 hours every day for months and months, and months. We were the ones sitting with him until 2 or 3 in the morning when he might or might not fall asleep.

The first year, we saw 27 doctors and psychologists trying to get help. I stopped my work to take care of him. I had to. He was out of school for months and had all types of strange new behaviors. He would suddenly freeze and stare as if blinded like a deer caught in the headlights. He would fall down and shake or sometimes he would simply withdraw and not be able to converse.

We went and went, searching for medical help and the going wore us all out. After 12 months our son came to my husband and me one night and said he could not go to any more doctors, they were not helping him. I cried myself to sleep that night with the deep fear that we would never find someone to help us if he would not go anymore to doctors. We had been having great toughs of war for the past 3 months about going to doctors at that time.

In a great state of fear, I thought the only thing left for us was to really, really pray together, out loud and ask God to help us. We had done all we could possibly do ourselves and it was not working. Amazingly, my husband and I had not actually sat down together and prayed about this with God in the past year since it had all begun. We did pray together, out loud and things began to change almost immediately. At the time, we really did not know what had actually happened to our son. He had had the surgery and then had to take his braces off and he had to go to eye therapy after the surgery but we had no sense of the source of the imbalances for him.

After our evening of praying together, however, we were led just a surely as if God took us by the hand out of the dark times into the Light.

Our son took 2 years to appear mostly healed to us with some remaining remnants of those times still showing up for the next 12 years or so. This experience catapulted me completely and wholly into spiritual healing. Our experience dramatically affected our entire household in the most profound and unexpected ways. We each know Spirit in individual and specific ways because of what we all went through together.

Come forward with me 16 years and here is what I have learned spiritually.

Spiritual health is THE basis of all health , happiness and well being. Spiritual health and physical health are one and the same though we do not live our lives this way, for the most part. We still think of healing and health as a physical phenomenon. We still act as if the recurring pain we have originates in the body. We and most of the medical profession look at health strictly through the lens of the body.

Our bodies are the encasing of our consciousness, of our knowing of All That Is. Every nerve, fiber, cell and pathway daily reflects our sense of peace as well as our sense of anxiety. Our bodies are no more than the outer casing for our consciousness. We either exude joy, peace and delight or we exude burden, stress and regret and everything in-between. The choice is ours. We are our thoughts, our feelings, our traumas, our fear and our hopes all rolled into one bundle, we know as the body.

(click here for the rest of the story)

*Comm-Unity on the Hill is a Unity Congregation which meets on the grounds of the National Cathedral in Hearst Hall at the corner of Woodley Ave. and Wisconsin Ave,N.W., Washington, D.C. Services are weekly on Sundays at 10 A.M. They can be reached at cothdc@verizon.net or 703-379-4450. All are welcome.

Feb 12 2009

Loving of Self

“Loving myself seems indulgent. What is all this stuff about loving oneself? I get the best feelings when I help others meet their needs regardless of myself. When I focus on myself, I feel selfish.”

A spiritual definition of loving oneself might be a place to begin. Indulging oneself is yielding to our wants, desires and whims whether or not they are good for us. Loving oneself is making space for those things which feed our soul, our heart and our bodies.

Indulging oneself might be buying another tee-shirt in a color we don’t have or drinking the third beer when two is really enough for the particular evening. Taking a walk outside to be in fresh air and allow all our cares to float away with the wind, is loving of self. Calling a good friend to reconnect because we have been meaning to do it could also be loving of self. The first examples are little treats we might want which we give ourselves permission to do. They can be fun and though they are not really needed, we might say, “go ahead, you deserve them”. The second set of choices are gifts to ourselves of something we really need and benefit from, in order to feel love’s flowing energy in our lives. They are both fine approaches to living, the latter though can bring balance and flowing energy to our sense of self and our bodies.

Hiking Swiss Alps near Grindelward by Joffe Striker — Hiking by Jofre Ferrer Swiss Alps near Grindewald

Why is loving ourselves so hard to do?

Perhaps because we have not ever seen this behavior modeled. Perhaps because when we do things for others, we get recognition and appreciation from another which strokes our ego temporarily. Perhaps it is hard to love ourselves because we don’t recognize our real needs or even know what is a loving act for ourselves.

Loads of us put a very high value on what gets external recognition, reward or influence with others. Others make daily choices that will “get them ahead”, “get them in good with so and so”, or “pay off in the long run”. For example, Washington D.C. is one place I have lived where folks actually get together at breakfast meetings for the long run. When I first moved there, I was astounded to discover this repeatedly. When we continue to fill our days with such choices, our time gets filled up with things we think will bring us concrete rewards in the future. The present can become stale and literally lifeless. Our self suffers.

Then there are choices to help others because it is the right thing to do, it is my role in life, it is required and it is certainly expected of me. Frequently, women tell me they have no time for themselves because they are fully committed to their children, their husbands, their parents, their pets, their neighbors, their synagogue ( church) and the PTA. Men often tell me between home and work, there is no time to even consider what might be a loving act for self. The very thought of it is often strange to contemplate.

A choice to love oneself is foreign in a world where we so often measure ourselves by how well we are doing externally and how fully we meet our responsibilities. A loving choice towards oneself only works when we move beyond finding pleasure in the way others see us, in our external indications of success and in the material possessions and experiences we can gather at will. A loving choice for self, requires some deep time with our own integrity to even begin to recognize what that might be for ourselves. We may have to make some mistakes before we know what really feeds us on the inside. Keep trying though, it is a pathway to the Divine.

When we love ourselves, we are actually able to come closer and closer to the divinity within. When we lose ourselves” to an endeavor of love such as a garden, a hot bath, a painting or walk up a mountain, we totally commune with ourselves. We are One with All That Is. We are not separate from All That Is unless we choose to be by not taking time to “be still and know that I AM God”. Loving oneself is a spiritual act, an act of loving kindness which enables our deep well of love to flow without consideration of the outcomes, rewards or implications. A choice for love enables us to be in the present moment which is all there really is, anyway.

We are not loving ourselves when we are pushing ourselves to do ANYTHING. We are not loving ourselves when we see ourselves as sacrificing our health, well-being or personal needs. We are not loving ourselves when we are trying to please others, influence others, impress others, get something from another or act some way other than in integrity with ourselves. We are not loving ourselves when we constantly choose others’ needs over our own needs.

Well, what about if we have to do something and the only way is to push ourselves to do it? A mental and spiritual adjustment may be needed but pushing is really not loving of self.

I was a life time hoarder before I worked with my mother to clear out her house where she had lived 40 years. I rarely threw anything out and the thought of spending an afternoon cleaning out seemed a completely distasteful experience. At 86, my mother finally decided she needed to move to a retirement center. I was the only one able to work with her to clear out the house, make the choices for keeping, throwing and selling of her things. I dreaded the thought of what had to be done.

I literally felt sick thinking that I had to do this but there was no other way presenting itself. I knew enough spiritually to realize that I needed to clear my fear of clearing out the family homestead and my fear of getting overwhelmed doing it. If I didn’t, I would simply make the process agony for myself and my mother. My mother was already overwhelmed enough for the both of us.

I asked myself, what is the most loving way I can do this without pushing myself, beating myself up, or going into anger and rage about what needs to be done? I decided to move my work around to allow for two days out of town with my mother each week until the work was finished. That schedule, I could handle. I could enjoy being with my mother if I was not paying heavily with my own life. I could have enough energy in small doses to actually be helpful. I could retreat at a given time and re-marshall my energy to be my most effective loving self. This way to work with my mother was a choice for love, and one of the biggest I had ever made. That time became a blessings for us so thoroughly and deeply, I could have never imagined it, ever. The love simply grew and grew between my mother and myself and between my brothers and me as well. The love simply took over and the work got done with the Grace of God, with Love’s Divine Presence! That choice for love turned out to be one of the best experiences Mom and I had ever had in our entire life. We laughed and cried with abandon and wove our hearts together in a new way.

When we choose to love ourselves, everyone around us benefits. We engage our highest self because we put ease, grace and love on the front burner. The act of loving oneself is deeply sacred because it helps us really know the deep integrity involved in making a loving choice for ourselves. One act of loving towards self can teach us more about love than helping everyone on the street and all our next of kin. When we put ourselves into the equation for loving acts towards others, we truly engage the part of us which acts from a pure place of service, loving without need for recognition, reward or attachment.

There is such a thing as a self-centered or selfish person. That is different from making loving decisions for oneself. A self-centered person operates from a space of lack. I need this to happen in this way and these folks to act in that way, for the following to occur. A loving choice for self can only be made from a completely different well inside. In that well is integrity, self-acceptance, allowing and kindness. From that one space, love can expand in infinite directions.

When we experiment and practice making loving decisions, then our choices to help others come from that well of loving kindness inside rather than from the well of shoulds, ought to and have tos. We can then allow the natural order of Divine Love Energy to swirl around, up and through us and extend out to all we meet. Make the choice for love of self with as much humility, kindness and gentleness as you can. You and everyone around you will be richer for this.

What choices can you make today which are loving ones for yourself ? Share these if you’d like, in the comments section at the end of this post.

oneness

Presented to CommUnity on the Hill Congregation*

Washington, D.C. , January 24, 2010

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