I have been immersed lately in a 56-cd set of the audiobook of "A Course in Miracles." I listen to one cd at a time, over and over for about a week or so, back and forth on my way to work on my car's cd player. I don't switch the cd to the next one until I understand it 99% completely, as I never expect 100% of anything! I am finding out that I am an "audio" learner. I had read most of the ACIM text, but it had never sunk in like it is now through these cd's. What I find over and over is that all my avenues of study and learning on my quest for peace meet like four or five freeways all sharing the same interchange.
Remember the ho'oponopono man Dr Hew Len who cured and rendered unnecessary an entire hospital ward for the criminally insane in Hawaii? Well according to ACIM it appears we have another piece of the jigsaw fitted....it is possible that the good miracle worker was merely taking himself into what the course calls "The Holy Instant" over and over day after day and week after week. As the course teaches, the entire universe is healed when we simply stop thinking of the past or future and surrender our mind to the holy spirit and let it be guided on autopilot that way.
Whenever I have doubt or any form of fear that this world is so eager and happy to give, I simply do what Dr Hew did, and I say "I love you" over and over to the divine in all of us, and everything starts going very well. I may just cure this runaway insane economy while I work on taxes, who knows? Want to help me?
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Problems Part III as promised!
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Time flies! It has been a long time since I wrote about problem-solving methods. Heck, it's been a long time since I wrote about anything! I need to quit my day job!
My third problem-solving technique is really not even a technique per se. Let me explain.
A Course in Miracles is the ultimate self-help course. In it one will find, besides the text and a section called the "Manual for Teachers," a workbook filled with 365 lessons, one for each day of the year. One of those lessons, number 79, begins:
"A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world."
It continues proclaiming that there is only ever ONE problem, "Separation." Separation in the course simply means that we think we have separated from our Creator. When examined, the idea that anything or anyone could ever be seperate from its creator is fairly hard to fathom.
So the Course simply states that your only problem is that you think you have seperated from God. And that in reality that never could have happened as it would be impossible to do so. So therefore you cannot have any problems at all. If you think you have problems these are merely "constructs" of an unreal world which in essence is like a giant dream lasting multiple lifetimes but going nowhere as it is all mind-stuff.
So I use this this way - whenever I feel a "problem" occuring or starting to surface, I simply repeat to myself silently in my head "there is only one problem, my seperation problem, and that problem never actually occured and could never occur." What happens when I remember to do this, and remembering is the hardest part, is that whatever is happening just gets solved because I am no longer dwelling on it and labeling it as a problem, I actually tell myself that I really don't care about this problem. This makes it less powerful of a force to ruin my day, and it almost becomes something I can chuckle about.
I dare you to try this today. I would love to hear whether it helps your feeling about your day and all the "problems" in it!
Time flies! It has been a long time since I wrote about problem-solving methods. Heck, it's been a long time since I wrote about anything! I need to quit my day job!
My third problem-solving technique is really not even a technique per se. Let me explain.
A Course in Miracles is the ultimate self-help course. In it one will find, besides the text and a section called the "Manual for Teachers," a workbook filled with 365 lessons, one for each day of the year. One of those lessons, number 79, begins:
"A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world."
It continues proclaiming that there is only ever ONE problem, "Separation." Separation in the course simply means that we think we have separated from our Creator. When examined, the idea that anything or anyone could ever be seperate from its creator is fairly hard to fathom.
So the Course simply states that your only problem is that you think you have seperated from God. And that in reality that never could have happened as it would be impossible to do so. So therefore you cannot have any problems at all. If you think you have problems these are merely "constructs" of an unreal world which in essence is like a giant dream lasting multiple lifetimes but going nowhere as it is all mind-stuff.
So I use this this way - whenever I feel a "problem" occuring or starting to surface, I simply repeat to myself silently in my head "there is only one problem, my seperation problem, and that problem never actually occured and could never occur." What happens when I remember to do this, and remembering is the hardest part, is that whatever is happening just gets solved because I am no longer dwelling on it and labeling it as a problem, I actually tell myself that I really don't care about this problem. This makes it less powerful of a force to ruin my day, and it almost becomes something I can chuckle about.
I dare you to try this today. I would love to hear whether it helps your feeling about your day and all the "problems" in it!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Problems, Schmoblems! (Part 2 of 3)
Well I trust you have been walking along the razor's edge for a few days! Here comes another idea for handling those pesky problems! This one is courtesy of Joe Vitale and Dr Hew Len, my favorite Hawaiian Ho'oponopono guy!
According to the book "Zero Limits," problems are simply memories replaying. They will dominate your mind and hence your life as long as you let those old gramophones keep playing over and over.
Ho'oponopono simply asks you to replace those memories replaying with the phrases "I Love You, I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me, and Thank You." This is telling the devine which is inside us all that you are grateful that He is there, you have "caught" the program that brought a "problem" into your awareness (this could be overeating, being out of money, your child's tantrums, an allergy or disease, or world peace and bad government, or anything) and you don't know how you caught it, but you are sorry this problem is in your awareness, you are asking the divine to forgive this situation, and you show gratitude for the help which the divine always offers.
This mental ritual will change your life. But you must try it. Which reminds me of the guy who said, "Lord, PLEASE let me win the lottery," and a big voice from heaven says "But Frank, you've gotta buy a ticket!" In other words, reading and studying these methods is all well and good, but I dare you to really try this for a whole day, whenever you remember to do it, and I bet you will notice how good of a day you have, and I bet some weird "coincidences" will occur! When you receive an unexpected check, or somebody enters your life at just the right time, you can thank divine providence....over and over and over in your head!
Stay tuned for Part 3!
According to the book "Zero Limits," problems are simply memories replaying. They will dominate your mind and hence your life as long as you let those old gramophones keep playing over and over.
Ho'oponopono simply asks you to replace those memories replaying with the phrases "I Love You, I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me, and Thank You." This is telling the devine which is inside us all that you are grateful that He is there, you have "caught" the program that brought a "problem" into your awareness (this could be overeating, being out of money, your child's tantrums, an allergy or disease, or world peace and bad government, or anything) and you don't know how you caught it, but you are sorry this problem is in your awareness, you are asking the divine to forgive this situation, and you show gratitude for the help which the divine always offers.
This mental ritual will change your life. But you must try it. Which reminds me of the guy who said, "Lord, PLEASE let me win the lottery," and a big voice from heaven says "But Frank, you've gotta buy a ticket!" In other words, reading and studying these methods is all well and good, but I dare you to really try this for a whole day, whenever you remember to do it, and I bet you will notice how good of a day you have, and I bet some weird "coincidences" will occur! When you receive an unexpected check, or somebody enters your life at just the right time, you can thank divine providence....over and over and over in your head!
Stay tuned for Part 3!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
"You've Got Your Problems, I've Got Mi-ine!" Part 1 of 3
Remember that old tune? I paraphrased a bit, but I think it is familiar. Well I have been working on "problems" a lot the past few months. But I don't mean in the sense that I have problems, and I am working on them. I mean I am working on the whole grand theory of the world of problems in general. And wouldn't you know it.....my three favorite books all have a method of "problem-solving" that works! Put all three together and "Voila" your day just got 100% better, and you didn't have to rely on anyone else or anything else happening to make it work.
First of the three is Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" solution. In a nutshell, it is simply this: ask yourself, "What problem do I have RIGHT NOW? Not in ten seconds, not in ten minutes, not next tax season, but RIGHT NOW!" If you have reached the point, after practicing, where you can "be present" in the present moment, you will see that it is true, there are no problems right now. But here is where the magic happens....picture yourself as the zen master who according to Tolle "walks along the razor's edge of the eternal now." Guess what? Try it and see. You can walk along that edge and you will be problem-free guaranteed....UNTIL the moment when your conciousness slips back below the level you were at on the razor's edge of now. When you slip down a notch, your problems will all be there waiting for you in the basement of conciousness, or the time-driven temporal world we normally inhabit. Please try this and see if I am right, it can't hurt, it's free! Stay tuned for Part Two of this three-part series!
First of the three is Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" solution. In a nutshell, it is simply this: ask yourself, "What problem do I have RIGHT NOW? Not in ten seconds, not in ten minutes, not next tax season, but RIGHT NOW!" If you have reached the point, after practicing, where you can "be present" in the present moment, you will see that it is true, there are no problems right now. But here is where the magic happens....picture yourself as the zen master who according to Tolle "walks along the razor's edge of the eternal now." Guess what? Try it and see. You can walk along that edge and you will be problem-free guaranteed....UNTIL the moment when your conciousness slips back below the level you were at on the razor's edge of now. When you slip down a notch, your problems will all be there waiting for you in the basement of conciousness, or the time-driven temporal world we normally inhabit. Please try this and see if I am right, it can't hurt, it's free! Stay tuned for Part Two of this three-part series!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
"I Was Working in the Lab...Late One Night" ( Early Morning Lucid Dreaming )
Knock knock knock, I heard resonating from my front door. But wait, why is the guy who helps with the yardwork knocking? I had gotten up an hour earlier, helped my son get off to school, noticed the yardwork being done, and had gone back to sleep for an hour before hitting the pavement to work for the umpteenth time. So I rose and strode into the living room, finding the front door ajar, and after opening it further, I saw that a 1960's Volkswagen van was pulled up on the porch parallel to the door just inches away. That is when the most pleasant surprise hit me. I hadn't had one of these in months: I was conscious in an early-morning dream. I was lucid, as they say. The world outside the door was my oyster. I had experienced this type of dream many times before and had always enjoyed them thoroughly, but this time, I was determined to put it to good use.
Since I am constantly "working" during my waking hours on understanding the key concept of A Course in Miracles which plainly promotes that "Your sleeping and your waking dreams merely have different forms, and that is all." Additionally, "All your time is spent in dreaming."
"Level confusion" is what makes us forget we are lying safely in our beds when we become immersed in our nocturnal dreamworlds, after all it seems so REAL! The Course promotes the theory that our waking lives are also fictional, and the "level" above us here, or, the "bed that we are sleeping in," is actually a state outside of space and time, where everything is one and perfect, the Course calls it "heaven" where we actually dwell, one level up.
So here I am, stepping out my front door, around the front of that beige Volkswagen van, and out into the "world" which I am now the master of, as I know I am lying in bed, but I am on a cool mind-trip this morning. It is difficult to keep the lucidity going, one tends to fall back into the dream and lose the lucid character of it. But since I have been working so hard on my Course work, I will use this special dream as an experiment to prove to myself the possibility that "all my time is spent in dreaming."
One thing I consciously did was fly. I always do that in lucid dreams! But this time I paid very close attention to the feeling of the wind on my feet. I was leaning back, I had my flip-flops on, and I was just cruising down the road about three feet (one yard, that is) above the road. "Yes," I said to myself, "that is exactly how the wind feels against my skin in 'real life.'" I realized that my mind was completely capable of making this feeling exactly like it feels in the "waking" time, or the "waking dream."
My next concentrated experiment was when I found myself in an Ace Hardware store. I devised this plan.....I have found the Law of Attraction falling short in practice in real life, in other words, I desire to change the outside world, the screen, if you will, but it never quite gets "remodeled" the way I would like it, other people don't always cooperate. So I experimented....I will steal this alarm clock, and I will test this "dreamworld" and see if in a real lucid dream, there is no "opposition" to my wish, maybe I can just leave with the clock. Well lo and behold, very similar to the observed waking opposition to my goals and desires I just mentioned, when I took one step outside the door of the store, there was an Ace employee there in uniform, saying "Hey you can't just take that!" I was disappointed that the path had not been 100% clear, but, I realized upon waking and reflecting on this that this demonstrated that in the dream, I am NOT 100% certainly able to craft exactly down to the last person, place or thing exactly what I may THINK I desire, but there is, like in our Constitiution, checks and balances to complete freedom and control of every last little detailed thing.
This opportune dream I was able to experience helps me toward my goal of working with the process of ho'oponopono and The Power of Now and A Course in Miracles. Two helpful features of the Course are 1) the time taken for the coursework is optional, there is no required timeframe for completion, and 2) you do not have to BELIEVE the exercises, you just need to do them.
Lucid dreaming, according to Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now, "can be interesting and fascinating, but is not liberating." I agree with him on all three points, and would add that it can also be "educational."
Since I am constantly "working" during my waking hours on understanding the key concept of A Course in Miracles which plainly promotes that "Your sleeping and your waking dreams merely have different forms, and that is all." Additionally, "All your time is spent in dreaming."
"Level confusion" is what makes us forget we are lying safely in our beds when we become immersed in our nocturnal dreamworlds, after all it seems so REAL! The Course promotes the theory that our waking lives are also fictional, and the "level" above us here, or, the "bed that we are sleeping in," is actually a state outside of space and time, where everything is one and perfect, the Course calls it "heaven" where we actually dwell, one level up.
So here I am, stepping out my front door, around the front of that beige Volkswagen van, and out into the "world" which I am now the master of, as I know I am lying in bed, but I am on a cool mind-trip this morning. It is difficult to keep the lucidity going, one tends to fall back into the dream and lose the lucid character of it. But since I have been working so hard on my Course work, I will use this special dream as an experiment to prove to myself the possibility that "all my time is spent in dreaming."
One thing I consciously did was fly. I always do that in lucid dreams! But this time I paid very close attention to the feeling of the wind on my feet. I was leaning back, I had my flip-flops on, and I was just cruising down the road about three feet (one yard, that is) above the road. "Yes," I said to myself, "that is exactly how the wind feels against my skin in 'real life.'" I realized that my mind was completely capable of making this feeling exactly like it feels in the "waking" time, or the "waking dream."
My next concentrated experiment was when I found myself in an Ace Hardware store. I devised this plan.....I have found the Law of Attraction falling short in practice in real life, in other words, I desire to change the outside world, the screen, if you will, but it never quite gets "remodeled" the way I would like it, other people don't always cooperate. So I experimented....I will steal this alarm clock, and I will test this "dreamworld" and see if in a real lucid dream, there is no "opposition" to my wish, maybe I can just leave with the clock. Well lo and behold, very similar to the observed waking opposition to my goals and desires I just mentioned, when I took one step outside the door of the store, there was an Ace employee there in uniform, saying "Hey you can't just take that!" I was disappointed that the path had not been 100% clear, but, I realized upon waking and reflecting on this that this demonstrated that in the dream, I am NOT 100% certainly able to craft exactly down to the last person, place or thing exactly what I may THINK I desire, but there is, like in our Constitiution, checks and balances to complete freedom and control of every last little detailed thing.
This opportune dream I was able to experience helps me toward my goal of working with the process of ho'oponopono and The Power of Now and A Course in Miracles. Two helpful features of the Course are 1) the time taken for the coursework is optional, there is no required timeframe for completion, and 2) you do not have to BELIEVE the exercises, you just need to do them.
Lucid dreaming, according to Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now, "can be interesting and fascinating, but is not liberating." I agree with him on all three points, and would add that it can also be "educational."
Thursday, September 2, 2010
EXTRA EXTRA Physicist Confirms Course in Miracles Theory!
In today's London Telegraph, famed physicist Stephen Hawking is quoted thusly:
"God was not needed to create the universe." In other words, according to the famous scientist, the Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the universe.
I found this very appropos to everything I have been studying. Gary Renard in The Disappearance of the Universe says the very same thing. His book, which is a transcript of his conversations with "Ascended Masters" who visited him 17 times over nine years and explained to him in detail what the real meaning of A Course in Miracles is all about, is a must-read for any student of quantum physics, ho-oponopono, and the Course.
The basis of the Course can be summed up in what Hawking is saying: God has nothing whatsoever to do with the idle dream we are experiencing. Some might say this fact is unsettling or shocking, but after letting it sink in for a long time, I have found it quite the opposite. I experience it as very liberating. It is like a weight has been removed from my shoulders, I hope some of that feeling has reached you too.
The article mentioned above can be found at telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news
It can also be linked to by visiting the news-site rense.com
"God was not needed to create the universe." In other words, according to the famous scientist, the Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the universe.
I found this very appropos to everything I have been studying. Gary Renard in The Disappearance of the Universe says the very same thing. His book, which is a transcript of his conversations with "Ascended Masters" who visited him 17 times over nine years and explained to him in detail what the real meaning of A Course in Miracles is all about, is a must-read for any student of quantum physics, ho-oponopono, and the Course.
The basis of the Course can be summed up in what Hawking is saying: God has nothing whatsoever to do with the idle dream we are experiencing. Some might say this fact is unsettling or shocking, but after letting it sink in for a long time, I have found it quite the opposite. I experience it as very liberating. It is like a weight has been removed from my shoulders, I hope some of that feeling has reached you too.
The article mentioned above can be found at telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news
It can also be linked to by visiting the news-site rense.com
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Time Waits for No One? Thoughts on Time and Mind
Part of my quest for truth began when I noticed the similarities running through all of the brilliant works I was reading. I had noticed that Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" had a lot of similarities to "A Course in Miracles." Time, in the course, as in Tolle, is merely an illusion. The course goes even further, and states that the ONLY purposeful use for time is for healing. In other words, time used for any other purpose (read: money, travel, work, play, NFL games, skateboarding, fill in the blank) is actually doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and "chasing after wind."
The course goes on further than this, though. It posits that time is such an illusion that it is no more, and was actually over and done long ago. Everything we observe is merely the recollection of a tiny tick of time when the "original sin," the "fall of man," the banishment from Eden, or whatever you want to call it occurred and was immediately then corrected, never to be experienced again in reality but only in the mind dreaming of illusion (read: you and me.)
My mind has a hard time grasping this. I am sure yours does too. After all, everything you believed for all these years never really happened, if one is to believe the course. Luckily, the course does not ask us to believe this. It merely asks us to read about this and consider this. It knows how used to the world we are, and how much resistance our egos have to these "crazy thoughts."
The good thing I notice when I think about this is that when I do spend part of my day fully in the now and telling myself this whole place is an illusion, that part of the day goes very well indeed. Better than lots of other parts of the day, like when I am caught up unconscious in "work," thought, or anything of the world. So, my feeling about time is this: I will tell my mind that it is over and gone, I will feel peace while thinking this way, and at the other times I will be caught up in the "world" so I won't really be thinking at all in any important sense of the word "think," until the next time I can get myself to that quiet peaceful place outside of time and mind.
The course goes on further than this, though. It posits that time is such an illusion that it is no more, and was actually over and done long ago. Everything we observe is merely the recollection of a tiny tick of time when the "original sin," the "fall of man," the banishment from Eden, or whatever you want to call it occurred and was immediately then corrected, never to be experienced again in reality but only in the mind dreaming of illusion (read: you and me.)
My mind has a hard time grasping this. I am sure yours does too. After all, everything you believed for all these years never really happened, if one is to believe the course. Luckily, the course does not ask us to believe this. It merely asks us to read about this and consider this. It knows how used to the world we are, and how much resistance our egos have to these "crazy thoughts."
The good thing I notice when I think about this is that when I do spend part of my day fully in the now and telling myself this whole place is an illusion, that part of the day goes very well indeed. Better than lots of other parts of the day, like when I am caught up unconscious in "work," thought, or anything of the world. So, my feeling about time is this: I will tell my mind that it is over and gone, I will feel peace while thinking this way, and at the other times I will be caught up in the "world" so I won't really be thinking at all in any important sense of the word "think," until the next time I can get myself to that quiet peaceful place outside of time and mind.
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