"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presents automatically liberates others." ~ Marianne Williamson
I have met many people who treat love like a category, in the seemingly ever so complex, and confusing life we live: money, job, social life, sex, love...so on and so forth. Then the question is: who am I? You find yourself at the center of all things, which in truth you are. You look out at the world with an underlying sense of fear that may be projecting thoughts like these: "Look at those people with more than me, man I'm such a failure", or "I'm gonna work really hard to get what they have." I know that within the nightmare of my mind I judged myself with such unrelenting severity. My thoughts were thoughts that I'd never be a wife, a mother, ~ forget any of those things, I'd never feel what it really means to be a woman with the problems I seemed to be suffering on a deep psychological level. It would just be a few years later that I would find out that I was sexually molested when I was three. When I found that out I very deep part of me rejoiced, rejoiced because the mystery was solved; the mystery of deep, dark and unrelenting suffering was solved. "I don't have to blame myself anymore" I sobbed, "I can finally heal." I saw years of evil (loveless thinking) uproot itself from me and begin to purge. I can hardly begin to explain the depth of the pain and guilt inside my being that was finally reached by powerful love to show me the ultimate unreality of even the darkest and creepiest of of demons. You will never outsmart the darkness, but you can out-love it. Love is not just a feeling that comes and goes; it seems to go because we block it out, but in the ultimate of ultimate realities, it is the only reality. It's not that ego-hallucinations don't grip us, and that actual energy is transformed into darkness by a loveless source of thinking, but energy was created by God, the source of love, and so the creation only suffers from a temporary altered reality. Fundamentally, all things lead back to God, which is also the same as saying, all things lead back to love.
If love is a category, another toy to be obtained and then tossed away by man, how the hell is it going to be the solution to the problems of the individual and the world? We go back to the first question asked, who are we? Who am I in all of this? The answer is, you are love, you are that which brings all of these "categories" manifest in the first place. The categories don't make up who you are, you are absolutely perfect, beautiful and powerful - you are love that keeps on giving - the "categories" are all extensions of you, of God, of love. Marianne Williamson said on her Twitter page: "You are the faucet, God's the water, You are the lamp, God's the electricity, you are human, God is the Divine within you. ALLOW the flow." Allow the Holy Spirit to love you, to thrust open your dusty shutters in the haunted attic of you mind, allow Him to show you your true and only reality; powerful, all redeeming, all knowing, totally relaxed, solution to everything, love. ASK for help. "Strength" of the ego is that, that says that if you give of yourself in anyway, if you even dare to budge from your deep-seated rock-hard alibi of an identity you are weak. It says that in order to be strong you need to stand alone, inside your high wrought-iron gates; you've got to keep all your categories close to you, all the time fearing some Robin Hood will leap over the gate and try to rob you of them. Asking the Holy Spirit, saying "God please, I need your help, I need a miracle," shows incredible strength - you've surrendered to yourself using the only strength that is real strength at all to transcend the arrogance of the ego, and finally come home to your palace of exquisite love. The ego tries to operate on it's own strength, but the only force driving the ego is fear. Marianne Williamson says: If you're in a fearful place, your operating on your own strength," - that isn't your own strength at all, it is a hallucination.
In a way, I am so grateful for my neurosis; in asking the Holy Spirit to help me see beyond the pain, in having to surrender in pain so deep, you can bet the love is even deeper; ever so much more profoundly so. There's this incredible song by Carrie Underwood called "So Small." The chorus goes "Sometimes that mountain you've been climbin' is just a grain of sand, and what you've been out there searchin' for forever is in your hand. When you figure out love is all that matters after all, it sure makes everything else, seem so small." The only thing that I would change is the the "sometimes.' Because in those times when you really truly surrender to love you don't sometimes realize the only thing that ever matters is love, it is every time. The universe does not operate out of a place of self-destruction, it operates in the giving and receiving of love. You send out to the universe "Holy Spirit, please help me to see with love" "Holy Spirit please heal me," "May he be healed by the power of the Holy Spirit," "Let us be healed, let us be blessed, let us return to love," you're making a conscious decision, out of yourself to call on the love of your true self, the universe is right there with you. Dr. Sunny says "You are being supported by thousands of angels." Love doesn't worry, love isn't fearful that his dreams won't come true, love knows it will, because well, love is the "beginning and the end," the "Alpha and the Omega," love is you love is one. Let's go back again to the first question "Who are you?" You are love. Love is the center of the universe. So, you are the center of the universe.
Love, is a state of being, but most of us have only ever tasted a tiny fraction of the love that we are capable of; we may experience our true self (or spirit) through the tenderness in the smile of a child, while standing on the beach, in the way the sun shines on the water, in falling deeply in love ~ whatever it is we remember those moments in a very profound way. They are memories that gave us a taste of what it's like to be free; We let our mind be healed by the love that pulsates throughout the universe; we allowed ourselves to become one. Although we may not have been conscious of this fact at the time, we relinquished our pain to the universe, to love. Our well-trained pain driven ego mind is always right behind doing it's best to invalidate the love that is being set free. Which is you, being set free. It's in the conscious mental choice, and recognition and trust in the vastness, depth, and power of ourselves and God/Love that we can in fact "shine out", dissolve with the warmth of our love, and heal the wounded pattern of our minds. Love is a spiritual discipline. There are so many thoughts that penetrate our minds everyday - ones that are unfortunately mostly very negative and destructive. In our wounded, victimized state, we are hallucinating ourselves into being very vulnerable; we let anything and everyone decide who we are and what we think, and since the mind is very powerful; it is the vehicle through which we create, we thus manifest the chaos that is being embraced as reality, ultimately by us.
"It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." I remember the first time I deeply felt the meaning of those words. I had already held that quote as my favorite quote of all time for about 7 yrs. But I really understood it when I was making the profound choice to walk away from everything that I'd known and start all over again - I was deciding to follow my heart. Following my heart, leaping into the unknown that was ultimately my saving grace, because beyond the fear I would discover the deepest love that I'd ever known. Doing this meant pretty much breaking every rule deemed sacred in the faith that I was brought up in, and this meant possible paying dearly for my sins later on. I was so scared, but those words came into my mind. I discovered that it was my light that was frightening me the most. In my mind I saw the darkness, which I'd identified with for so long having to go in the presence of such magnificent love. To me, my pain, my ego was my identity. Going for the light meant relinquishing it all, and putting my faith and trust in someone I'd buried a long time ago; myself. In putting my trust in myself I was putting my trust in God. When I put my trust in God, I was putting my trust in love. In putting my trust in love, I was beginning the process of the rebirth of myself. "I'm not afraid and so I'm free", sang the second grade of the Cape Ann Waldorf School. Marianne Williamson says that, 'If you're fearful, it means you're relying on your own power.' What she means is that you're allowing the ego self to talk you into thinking you're all alone, and way deep down you know that in this isolated state, you'd never find the power to face and transform the darkness. Call on the Holy Spirit to help you. Ask Him to heal your mind, relinquish the fear to him. Say 'I love you, I forgive you, I release you to the Holy Spirit.' Break the bar of fear ramming its way through your system, then focus, pay attention. Stay 'in the realm of the answer (Marianne Williamson), BE PERSISTENT. Chant the chant that works for you. In the presence of love the darkness will fight hard to get in and manipulate your thoughts again. You've got to remember; love just is. It's so simple in it's power. Feel the invisible, powerful essence that is you, and that is so magnificently greater than you fill inside you and surround you. Feel it dissolve the fears and protect you with it's powerful presents. Say a prayer that echos in your heart to have it fill your body so that your once fearful prison becomes the channel through which this love flows. Allow your mind to be free of the disease of fear, of it's hallucination. Allow the love to heal you, free you, liberate your spirit. Choose to stay in communion with it. Don't fight the darkness, melt it with the powerful love that is you in all your Glory. God is the love inside you, and you are protected in this love that He has for you forever. Just as we heal ourselves through "being" (the love that is us), so we heal those who are the extension of us; the cosmos, through our presents.
(Quotations paraphrased from A Return to Love. These are the prayers that have brought be such love and healing).
I have met many people who treat love like a category, in the seemingly ever so complex, and confusing life we live: money, job, social life, sex, love...so on and so forth. Then the question is: who am I? You find yourself at the center of all things, which in truth you are. You look out at the world with an underlying sense of fear that may be projecting thoughts like these: "Look at those people with more than me, man I'm such a failure", or "I'm gonna work really hard to get what they have." I know that within the nightmare of my mind I judged myself with such unrelenting severity. My thoughts were thoughts that I'd never be a wife, a mother, ~ forget any of those things, I'd never feel what it really means to be a woman with the problems I seemed to be suffering on a deep psychological level. It would just be a few years later that I would find out that I was sexually molested when I was three. When I found that out I very deep part of me rejoiced, rejoiced because the mystery was solved; the mystery of deep, dark and unrelenting suffering was solved. "I don't have to blame myself anymore" I sobbed, "I can finally heal." I saw years of evil (loveless thinking) uproot itself from me and begin to purge. I can hardly begin to explain the depth of the pain and guilt inside my being that was finally reached by powerful love to show me the ultimate unreality of even the darkest and creepiest of of demons. You will never outsmart the darkness, but you can out-love it. Love is not just a feeling that comes and goes; it seems to go because we block it out, but in the ultimate of ultimate realities, it is the only reality. It's not that ego-hallucinations don't grip us, and that actual energy is transformed into darkness by a loveless source of thinking, but energy was created by God, the source of love, and so the creation only suffers from a temporary altered reality. Fundamentally, all things lead back to God, which is also the same as saying, all things lead back to love.
If love is a category, another toy to be obtained and then tossed away by man, how the hell is it going to be the solution to the problems of the individual and the world? We go back to the first question asked, who are we? Who am I in all of this? The answer is, you are love, you are that which brings all of these "categories" manifest in the first place. The categories don't make up who you are, you are absolutely perfect, beautiful and powerful - you are love that keeps on giving - the "categories" are all extensions of you, of God, of love. Marianne Williamson said on her Twitter page: "You are the faucet, God's the water, You are the lamp, God's the electricity, you are human, God is the Divine within you. ALLOW the flow." Allow the Holy Spirit to love you, to thrust open your dusty shutters in the haunted attic of you mind, allow Him to show you your true and only reality; powerful, all redeeming, all knowing, totally relaxed, solution to everything, love. ASK for help. "Strength" of the ego is that, that says that if you give of yourself in anyway, if you even dare to budge from your deep-seated rock-hard alibi of an identity you are weak. It says that in order to be strong you need to stand alone, inside your high wrought-iron gates; you've got to keep all your categories close to you, all the time fearing some Robin Hood will leap over the gate and try to rob you of them. Asking the Holy Spirit, saying "God please, I need your help, I need a miracle," shows incredible strength - you've surrendered to yourself using the only strength that is real strength at all to transcend the arrogance of the ego, and finally come home to your palace of exquisite love. The ego tries to operate on it's own strength, but the only force driving the ego is fear. Marianne Williamson says: If you're in a fearful place, your operating on your own strength," - that isn't your own strength at all, it is a hallucination.
In a way, I am so grateful for my neurosis; in asking the Holy Spirit to help me see beyond the pain, in having to surrender in pain so deep, you can bet the love is even deeper; ever so much more profoundly so. There's this incredible song by Carrie Underwood called "So Small." The chorus goes "Sometimes that mountain you've been climbin' is just a grain of sand, and what you've been out there searchin' for forever is in your hand. When you figure out love is all that matters after all, it sure makes everything else, seem so small." The only thing that I would change is the the "sometimes.' Because in those times when you really truly surrender to love you don't sometimes realize the only thing that ever matters is love, it is every time. The universe does not operate out of a place of self-destruction, it operates in the giving and receiving of love. You send out to the universe "Holy Spirit, please help me to see with love" "Holy Spirit please heal me," "May he be healed by the power of the Holy Spirit," "Let us be healed, let us be blessed, let us return to love," you're making a conscious decision, out of yourself to call on the love of your true self, the universe is right there with you. Dr. Sunny says "You are being supported by thousands of angels." Love doesn't worry, love isn't fearful that his dreams won't come true, love knows it will, because well, love is the "beginning and the end," the "Alpha and the Omega," love is you love is one. Let's go back again to the first question "Who are you?" You are love. Love is the center of the universe. So, you are the center of the universe.
Love, is a state of being, but most of us have only ever tasted a tiny fraction of the love that we are capable of; we may experience our true self (or spirit) through the tenderness in the smile of a child, while standing on the beach, in the way the sun shines on the water, in falling deeply in love ~ whatever it is we remember those moments in a very profound way. They are memories that gave us a taste of what it's like to be free; We let our mind be healed by the love that pulsates throughout the universe; we allowed ourselves to become one. Although we may not have been conscious of this fact at the time, we relinquished our pain to the universe, to love. Our well-trained pain driven ego mind is always right behind doing it's best to invalidate the love that is being set free. Which is you, being set free. It's in the conscious mental choice, and recognition and trust in the vastness, depth, and power of ourselves and God/Love that we can in fact "shine out", dissolve with the warmth of our love, and heal the wounded pattern of our minds. Love is a spiritual discipline. There are so many thoughts that penetrate our minds everyday - ones that are unfortunately mostly very negative and destructive. In our wounded, victimized state, we are hallucinating ourselves into being very vulnerable; we let anything and everyone decide who we are and what we think, and since the mind is very powerful; it is the vehicle through which we create, we thus manifest the chaos that is being embraced as reality, ultimately by us.
"It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." I remember the first time I deeply felt the meaning of those words. I had already held that quote as my favorite quote of all time for about 7 yrs. But I really understood it when I was making the profound choice to walk away from everything that I'd known and start all over again - I was deciding to follow my heart. Following my heart, leaping into the unknown that was ultimately my saving grace, because beyond the fear I would discover the deepest love that I'd ever known. Doing this meant pretty much breaking every rule deemed sacred in the faith that I was brought up in, and this meant possible paying dearly for my sins later on. I was so scared, but those words came into my mind. I discovered that it was my light that was frightening me the most. In my mind I saw the darkness, which I'd identified with for so long having to go in the presence of such magnificent love. To me, my pain, my ego was my identity. Going for the light meant relinquishing it all, and putting my faith and trust in someone I'd buried a long time ago; myself. In putting my trust in myself I was putting my trust in God. When I put my trust in God, I was putting my trust in love. In putting my trust in love, I was beginning the process of the rebirth of myself. "I'm not afraid and so I'm free", sang the second grade of the Cape Ann Waldorf School. Marianne Williamson says that, 'If you're fearful, it means you're relying on your own power.' What she means is that you're allowing the ego self to talk you into thinking you're all alone, and way deep down you know that in this isolated state, you'd never find the power to face and transform the darkness. Call on the Holy Spirit to help you. Ask Him to heal your mind, relinquish the fear to him. Say 'I love you, I forgive you, I release you to the Holy Spirit.' Break the bar of fear ramming its way through your system, then focus, pay attention. Stay 'in the realm of the answer (Marianne Williamson), BE PERSISTENT. Chant the chant that works for you. In the presence of love the darkness will fight hard to get in and manipulate your thoughts again. You've got to remember; love just is. It's so simple in it's power. Feel the invisible, powerful essence that is you, and that is so magnificently greater than you fill inside you and surround you. Feel it dissolve the fears and protect you with it's powerful presents. Say a prayer that echos in your heart to have it fill your body so that your once fearful prison becomes the channel through which this love flows. Allow your mind to be free of the disease of fear, of it's hallucination. Allow the love to heal you, free you, liberate your spirit. Choose to stay in communion with it. Don't fight the darkness, melt it with the powerful love that is you in all your Glory. God is the love inside you, and you are protected in this love that He has for you forever. Just as we heal ourselves through "being" (the love that is us), so we heal those who are the extension of us; the cosmos, through our presents.
(Quotations paraphrased from A Return to Love. These are the prayers that have brought be such love and healing).