Effortless Blooming - Each day millions of flowers open effortlessly. Each day the tides
come and go along millions of miles of shores around the world. Each
day your heart beats and millions of cells carry out their tasks
without your direction. Nature has a rhythm for everything. Tune
into the rhythm of life and allow yourself to flow more easily with
situations. Plant the seeds, water and fertilize your own inner
garden, and trust that your blossoming is happening at exactly the
right time.

I read a book by an author whose name was Fong and I dont remember the name of the book or the first name of the author. I was sitting on the porch today and I remembered parts of the book.

He pointed out that the major sins that people commit have a foundation in the need to prove ourselves.

The need to prove ourselves better than our neighbor leads to the capital sin of pride.

The need to prove ourselves by having many posssessions leads to the capital sins of covetousness and envy. The need to prove ourselves to be desirable and powerful leads to the sin of covetousness and lust.

My thoughts regardig his premise of proving oneself: Our society often puts us in the position of attempting to prove ourselves on a regular basis. We are in strong competition from our earliest years--in school, social life, business, even in our religious life.

Who is the real Jesus..are we aligned to his essence or is their confusion in our approach to his truth..

It is interesting that the apostles challenged Jesus about their position in the kingdom of heaven.

And to this day we have never fully accepted Jesus' answer to their need to prove themselves--- -"the kingdom of heaven is within you"-----we don't have to prove ourselves --we just have to be in touch with the unique aspect of heaven that we carry within us.

I think we did not emphasize enough of this unique heaven within us and the need to communicate with our spirit in our own words-----The prayers of the saints are inspiring but they cannot be a substitute for our own spirit.

I think that the over-emphasis on directing our spirituality outward as well as over- emphasizing the intellectual has had some negative effects on our wholeness. Perhaps we are also overlooking our spiritual uniqeness as well as our humanity.

Often when looking at the modern person who call themselves Christian we see people with little compassion for themseves or for their fellow human beings. They are involved in proving to God and to their neighbors that thay are successful --that they are worthy to sit at the right hand of God----and that the unsuccessful who have not "proved themselves" are disposable.

The Kingdom of God dwells in every person in whom God has breathed His breath of life---We still have not been able to accept this central message from the mouth of our Brother, Jesus. I would like to hear any thoughts you would like to add to my comments.

Sincerely
Mabel Gil

Giving and Receiving Love

The past cannot be altered. The past is held in a state of eternal suspension, the words and deeds live there forever, the events were and nothing can undo them. The past is like an old picture, it changes not. Only the present has power for change, and that change is only a breath as the present continually feeds the past.

The amazing process ... begins with the decision not to fight against our vision, not to run away from them nor conceal them, but to bring them into the light. If the desire to be honest is greater than the desire to be good or bad, then the terrific power of our vision will become manifest, and behind the vision the old forgotten fear will shift our awarness (the illusion of being excluded from life), behind this pain of loneliness the deepest and most powerful and most hidden of all human desires: the desire to love, to give oneself, and to be part of the living stream that we call brotherhood.

The past can be analyzed and interpreted over and over, but the one true happening stands until the end of time.

Life is a chain of events. We exist because certain events did or did not happen. The past cements those sequences of events indefinitely. We may refer to them, reflect about them, reminisce about them all we wish, but we cannot change even one little thing. Our powers stop with this second, and cannot go back even an instant. The invisible gate locks and what has happened is secured forever. The past is sealed and we cannot interfere.

What has occurred is over with, and though it may have effects upon the future, the specific action which took place can never be repeated again identically. Things will not be, and cannot be the same today as they were yesterday. Something is always different. Today grows out of yesterday, and today is always new.

It is a rushing wave, this now, that sweeps us along unceasingly from birth to death. We are never really conscious of now until it is past, for by the time we have thought about it, now has become the past. We blink our eyes now, but by the time we have thought about it a few seconds have past, and that blinking of our eyes has become a part of history, and though a million years may pass the fact can never be altered that on a certain day at a certain time we blinked our eyes.

It does not matter whether events are witnessed or not, they still take their eternal place in the record book of time in the universe. There is not a leaf that falls to ground, not an ant that scurries underfoot, not a pebble tossed in a stream, and not a drop of rain that does not have everlasting significance.

-- GOD'S UNDERSTANDING OF TIME ESSENCE Love is our very deepest self and it is our true nature. It is beyond what we have learnt, what we have experienced and practiced. It is beyond cultivated attitudes and accumulated knowledge. It goes beyond vanity and pride. It goes beyond selfishness and greed. It goes beyond acquisition and accumulation. Love, in all its power and glory, goes beyond the very fear of death. Love lives for a purpose larger and grander than its own survival. For this purpose, it is willing to die. The death of one's body is a trivial detail to one who lives and dies for love. In all our greatest achievements, our greatest insight and understanding, our greatest wisdom and learning, the driving force is the power of love. The love of humanity at large, compassion for the poor and the suffering, love for nature, love for another, as one's own self – all these spring from the very source of our being where lies an inexhaustible treasure. This unseen unknown is the fountain of love. We can know it only in complete stillness. We can know it only in an unbroken awareness, free from the divisions and categories of thought. We can know it only as a profound experience that is beyond understanding and description. The power of the experience transforms us forever. This is the power of infinite love. Love gives infinitely and asks nothing in return. It gives as an expression of its own strength and abundance, as an expression of its own perfection.