1. Be willing to believe that your perception of truth is incomplete as your mind is unable to fathom infinity.
2. Find the courage to forgive all wrongs, past, present, and future, whether committed to you or by you.
3. Be willing to seek and accept that we are all connected, not figuratively, but literally and utterly.
4. Come to realize that below all matter is energy, or light, and that we are all constructed... Read More »

A wonderfully simplified view of the universe states that there are only two essential forces that drive us: love and fear. As we move to higher states and realities of love, it becomes increasingly desirable to release our fears.

I am finding that there are two methods which help me to achieve these intents, to be more driven by love and less by fear. The first is to immerse myself in love. If I think and speak only of love, my actions, my attractions, and my world tend to be more immersed in love.

In my experience though, to intentionally seek only love is a bit hollow. When I deny my fear in favor of love I deny my authentic self. I move towards a state of delusion; repressing my fears doesn't eradicate them, it merely hides them away.

Hidden in my unconscious thoughts, my fears sometimes gain strength. And they tend to... Read More »

How do we reconcile the desire to have our intents and dreams manifest with the spiritual need to release the attachments to future outcomes?

We know it's best to remain mindful of the present, to be grateful for all we have, and to keep our thoughts and heart on the positive, on joy and hope and faith and love. Yet we also know that life is about change, that today can be better than yesterday, that tomorrow can be better than today. These two sets of ideals seem to be incompatible, incongruent.

Perhaps it's about balance. To be overly attached to outcomes tends to lead to heartache and resentments, to discontentment. Yet to be utterly unattached to outcomes leaves us drifting in the universal flow; it denies that we are connected to that flow, that we are co-creators.

As we grow in spiritual, mental, and emotional maturity, we develop the intuitive ability to... Read More »

It's so easy to get distracted in our times of instant information. We're attracted to drama, to bad news, to something to be indignant about. We hear about conflict, ignorance, power struggles, and evil in the world and there's a part of us that wants to do something about it. So we pass it on. And in so doing we attract and perpetuate more drama, more bad news, more unfairness.

But how useful is it to pass along the drama we see in the world without taking any real action? We fool ourselves into the belief that we're increasing awareness and that in that increased awareness we'll get someone else... Read More »

We all know that spiritual people don't allow themselves to get angry, right? Wrath is one of those seven deadly sins. Resentments (unreleased anger) keep us stuck in unforgiveness. Anger is uncomfortable, unloving, and destructive.

Or maybe it's not.

Most of us journey through several identifiable stages on our path to (and of) spirituality and enlightenment. We begin our lives pure. As infants we know but a few emotions: contentment and discontentment. We feel either full and safe or we feel some sense of lack (hungry, wet, alone, cold). When we're full, dry, warm, and in the arms of a loving parent, we feel safe, full, secure, and protected. Our thoughts haven't matured to a state where we understand these feelings, but we know them nonetheless.

As we begin to learn about our little places in the world, connections start to form in our thoughts. We know that a bottle has good stuff... Read More »

It's funny and ironic that my book, Embracing Failure: The Way of Success, has been such a failure in terms of market acceptance and sales. It's a great little book that I put my heart and soul into. I wrote it in a season of failure, persevering daily, teaching myself to continue no matter what.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” ~ Winston Churchill

“I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” ~ Thomas Edison

“Successful people are successful for one simple reason: they think about failure differently.” ~ Seth Godin

The three quotes illustrate well the point of the book. It's not a desire to fail, but a willingness, that allows us to quickly and systematically continue to follow our dreams and intents in the face of failures.

It would have been easy for me to abandon my dream of being a successful... Read More »

I once had a friend who attempted to stifle me (unknowingly). She was on a traditional path to enlightenment, interacting with others in compassion, guided by a teacher, following the way set forth by an ancient master. She was well on her way. But she had an idea in her mind that held her back. She had climbed the great mountain of faith, arrived near the peak, and stopped. She was stopped by her belief that “the last foot was the most difficult.”

I considered the idea, saw its merit, and remembered my “last foot”. I tried for a few minutes to change her perspective. “Don't you see? The Light is just there. Within your reach. Release that last bit of fear and leap to the top.”

She didn't understand. My simple thinking didn't mesh well with what she'd been taught. I was sad, but left her to her choice. There are... Read More »

Attracting and achieving what we want in life requires belief, or faith, that what we wish for, intend, or desire, is possible. To imagine a thing is possible is but a beginning. To intend for that thing to be attracted is an important step on the path. But only in the absence of doubt, or at least in the shrinking of doubt to a point where its energy is less than the energy of the belief in the possibility of what we want, can we receive that which we wish to attract.

How then do we release the doubt that would hold us back from the lives we want? Setting aside the metaphysical aspects, we can see that doubt comes from many sources. Simplified though, it comes from but two: inside and outside.

Releasing the inner doubt is a process of letting go of less than successful memories from the past, through... Read More »

Some of us have been blessed to have found a loving significant other. Others of us haven't yet. How do those of us who haven't found our soulmates find them?

Theory number one: Soulmates are a rare find.

We live many lifetimes and most of those lives we don't find our soulmates. In a deep part of ourselves, we remember the experience, but to hope to find our soulmate in this life is foolish. I reject this theory on the basis that it presumes that we are ruled only by fate, and that fate is cruel, placing in us a desire that cannot be fulfilled. If there exists fate, fate is Divine, fate is God, and God is not cruel. Our desires are divine, thus implanted by God, thus achievable.

Theory number two: There are no soulmates.

There are two varieties of this theory. One says the concept of soulmates is utterly fallacious and... Read More »

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in my part of the world, a great time to reflect on all I'm grateful for, and on the meaning of gratitude.

What is gratitude?

Sometimes looking at a thing's opposites helps me to see that thing more clearly. To be grateful is to be thankful, to revel in life as it is. The opposites then, those things that keep us from gratitude, are unmet expectations, unforgiveness, a belief that life should be different, and a lack of acceptance. In perfect acceptance, perfect gratitude is easy, natural.

How do we reach acceptance?

Acceptance follows surrender. It doesn't much matter who or what we surrender to: God, the Divine Flowing Nature, the... Read More »