Spiritual Living Podcast Archive

In the Kingdom within, we are powerful. The powerful part of us loves new things, loves challenges, loves exercise, connecting with other people, checking off goals, taking action, heading somewhere, talking out loud. It wants to grow, to move, to expand. This power within us is constantly seeking a greater expression of life, of the Divine. We move beyond "stuck" by taking action. It is a matter of action vs. feeling, of having discipline and devotion. Action becomes its own reward. Action unites our body and our mind.

It's a way of life, to learn to live without fear. We let go of that scared part of us that won't let us live fully. There is no reason to be afraid of life. The fear will fade when we realize the only thing to get from life is the growth that comes from experiencing it. It takes time to cultivate the mind, to be able to reveal the qualities we want to reveal. When we dwell on the loving eyes of God, we are able to let go of judging, of both ourselves and others. Our greatest gift to ourselves and to others is to live life fully.

In life, sometimes things fall apart, and sometimes things show up unexpectedly. But we only have one choice in life---do we want to be happy? Can we be happy in this? Being happy is an enlightened path. It is a true spiritual path, direct and pure. Happiness depends on letting go of melodrama, letting go of our reasons not to be happy, enjoying life's experiences, and viewing life from 30,000 feet. We must remain conscious, centred, and committed. In this, we find that the highest spiritual practice is life itself. I am at peace. I appreciate life. I am unconditional love.

Today's talk is about our spiritual journey, a narrative of light and of consciousness. Our consciousness is living inside us, and the only light we can get is the light we create. We must learn to become comfortable with psychological disturbance. It is our pushing out against the envelope of the status quo of our conscious belief system. Through perseverance, we can break through it into the light. In fact, spirituality is this commitment to go beyond, no matter what it takes. We must stop defining the disturbed mind as a negative experience---We will find an ocean of love beyond all this fear and pain.

Pain is preeminent in the human experience. How can we use pain in an effective and productive way to further our own evolution, turning it from a problem or a disturbance into a spiritual practice? Often, we get stuck in a way of being, in despair, not knowing how to manage our emotional life. But the very thing we are confronted with---our pain and suffering, our disturbances---is actually part of our spiritual practice. Pain challenges our need for safety, comfort, and control over our own lives. But we can find freedom through awareness. We can begin to understand that pain is just a thing in the universe, that it is a temporary experience. Our true greatness lies on the other side of the pain.

This week, Dr. Patrick speaks about a metaphorical thorn---that ever-present source of pain in our lives, whatever it may be. Many of us build a complex environment around the thorn to prevent it from ever being touched. This includes the many coping mechanisms of our core beliefs to deal with and prevent our suffering. Because of this, the advice that our mind is giving us is psychologically damaged. Our mind's thoughts are disturbed by its fears. This is the advice we must not listen to, but we listen to it constantly. We must identify the root problem instead. We can notice who's noticing, that we are the subject observing something which is the object. We can become the explorer of our own lives, and let it go. It's not who we are---it's what the experience is. We are capable of ceasing to listen to the perpetual problems of our psyche. It is possible. It takes practice. Imagine what life could be if we didn't have those neurotic personal thoughts going on inside of ourselves, that we could enjoy things, that we could get to know people instead of needing them, experiencing our life instead of using our life to fix what is wrong inside of us. Awareness does not fight. There is no battle. There is just witnessing. Awareness has the capacity to release, to discern, to choose to remove the thorn by looking at the root cause behind the thorn. Awareness is simply aware while everything parades in front of it. Everything will be okay when we're okay with everything. We can make peace with what is and move into the perpetually-centred seat of the Self.

Change is the nature of life. So as we deal with life, is change exciting or frightening to us? If we have a lot of fear surrounding change, we won't like it and, ultimately, we won't enjoy life very much either. So, we choose to let go now, or we fall. When we struggle with fear, life becomes a struggle, because we are seeking to create a world around us that is predictable, controllable, and definable. Further, fear doesn't want to feel itself. It doesn't want to experience itself. Yet fear is another object in the universe that we are capable of experiencing. We can recognize it and learn to release it. When we resist change, we end up struggling with life. But what if life were okay to us just the way it is?

The lucid self is an awareness where we don't slide into conditions and lose our sense of self. When our awareness narrows, we become a lost soul. The lost soul is a consciousness that has dropped into the place where one's human thoughts, emotions, and sensory perceptions are all synchronized, where the consciousness makes the mistake of focusing on that one spot too closely. Divine Energy is always available to us. But in the lost-soul state, we have closed ourselves off to It. In rediscovering our sense of self, we can become aware that we are the ones experiencing both the event and the corresponding thoughts and emotions. In other words, the more we are willing to let the world be something we are aware of, the more it will let us be who we are. Spiritual Energy is what we experience when love rushes into our heart. The ultimate spiritual practice is to live in the world with an open heart. If we protect ourselves perfectly, we will never be free.

In order to be who we are, we must be willing to let go of who we think we are. Ultimately, we are all seeking freedom, a state of absolute well-being. The way to freedom is to step back and view the chatter of our mind objectively. If we're hearing the incessant talk, it is obvious that it is not us. So, just having the awareness of the chatter is significant. We are not the voice of our mind---we are the ones that hear the voice. The real problem is not life itself, it's the commotion that the mind makes about life that really causes the problem. The first step is to realize the problem-making nature of the voice inside us. But then we have the witness, the awareness, the consciousness. We can thus learn to watch the voice to become free of it. Freedom is to objectively watch our problems instead of getting lost in them.

There is a Buddhist teaching that says, "Love is like a bird with two wings. One wing is wisdom and the other is intelligence." Rev. Catherine McLeod ties all three---love, wisdom, and intelligence---together by drawing from three inspiring books to remind us that we are all deeply and truly loveable. The three books are Undefended Love by Jett Psaris and Marlena S. Lyons, Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power by Gary Zukav, and SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence by Cindy Wigglesworth. On our spiritual journey, we crave a deep intimacy with the Divine within us---to feel the connection to Spirit and to allow It to give us strength and wisdom when we are unexpectedly brought face-to-face with some unpleasant part of ourselves. From Undefended Love, we learn to "stay open in the face of fear and inquire into every thought, feeling, and behaviour. The deeper we love ourselves, the more the Universe will align with us." "When we are angry, depressed, jealous, thinking critical thoughts or having any of the familiar, painful experiences of frightening parts of our personality, we can choose to shift our perception to the loving parts of our personality." -- Gary Zukav

We cannot transform what we do not acknowledge. In Undefended Love by Jett Psaris and Marlena S. Lyons, and Breathing Underwater by Fr. Richard Rohr, we learn about our personality preoccupations and strategies, comprising what is called our defended personality. Simply, these are survival strategies that, without our conscious attention, become addictions. The strategies include doing everything perfectly, taking care of everybody, working hard, searching for what's missing, withholding ourselves, avoidance, controlling, being constantly on guard, self-distraction through constant activity and open-endedness, working to create a just world, trying to put the world in order, etc. If we try to change our ego with the help of our ego, we only end up with a better-disguised ego. We must be willing to go deeper. Having another good idea from the mind is not the answer. We must start incorporating the heart intelligence and the intuitive intelligence into our approach to life. One of the challenges with spiritual practice is that it will move us into a state of Grace. Grace is always a humiliation for our ego. We need a vital spiritual experience---a spirituality that reaches to the hidden levels and a deeper and wider perspective, an openness, a willingness. To finally surrender ourselves to healing, three spaces must be opened up within us: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body.

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it." -- Martha Graham We can choose through our own perception how we will receive the gifts of love from our Divine Source. This Infinite Divine Presence---that is a Principle---is always seeking a greater yet-to-be in us. So to perceive our True Essence, let us quiet our minds, open our hearts, relax the tension in our bodies, and relax the resistance to our feelings.

Love is not an activity or a behaviour---it is a way of being. As we relate to others, the deeper we know ourselves, the deeper we grow in our capacity to know others. We can only love what we know; and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge.

From Fr. Richard Rohr, we learn the following about the hero's journey. Out of a formless, uninitiated life, there somehow comes a call for each one of us, taking the form of a longing, a loneliness, a desire, or the knowledge that there must be more, a falling apart of the game that once sustained us. This is the beginning of the hero's journey. Enlightenment is not so much knowing as unknowing. It is less learning as unlearning. It's a second chance and a chosen naïveté without losing and without forgetting the contradictions and complexities that are in between. It is more surrendering than concluding. It is more trusting than fixing, in all gratuitous grace for which we can only give thanks. All that we can do is stay on the journey to listen to its lessons, both agony and ecstasy, and ask for the most rare and crucial of gifts, which is openness, trust, and faith. These are the steps of faith: Are we willing to listen to our inner guidance to give us the information we need? Are we willing to allow ourselves to experience new possibilities and a new deepening of who we truly are? Are we willing to know that this is the year that the deepest desires of our heart really can manifest?

The gifts of heaven are the benefits that come when we open ourselves to the single greatest truth that those before us knew: There is a larger world behind the one that we see around us every day. This larger world loves us more than we can imagine, and it is watching us at every moment, hoping that we will see hints of it in the world around us.

Continuing his discussion of Dr. Eben Alexander's experience of heaven, Dr. Patrick looks at ways we can open up to the experience of the Infinite. Before meditation, we can set an intention that is not based on current conditions. In doing so, we invite the possibilities instead of constraining the outcome. In gratitude, we open the doorway to the sacred. Through allowing, life will happen for us, and we need not force it. We can think differently about our experience of stress. We can view it as our body helping us rise to a particular challenge. Stress is not just functioning in a survival mode---it is our body's way of managing our energy. Five questions to consider for growing a new life experience: Is our crop really determined by our past growing season? Have we made stress our enemy or our ally? Are we opening to life more and more? Do we believe there is something more for us to discover? Will the crop that we choose produce a harvest that is in alignment with the gifts we are here to share?

Planting a garden is such a beautiful metaphor for what we do in our lives when we want to make a change and grow a beautiful life. We must set an intention (plant a seed) and be mindful of the conditions we are creating (tend the soil). Meditation and centering prayer are keys to tending the soil. This is no surprise. It's a glorious paradox to know that desperation can be the catalyst to change and a doorway to our divinity and mystical experiences. We just must learn to tell the little egoic voice inside to take a "time out" in order to grow something new. "Eventually, the universe starts to look like a great thought rather than a great machine." -- James Jean "The mind which we discover within us is the Mind that governs everything." -- Ernest Holmes

Our life experiences are a result of what we have practiced thinking about. So let us ask ourselves, what can we exchange in our thinking to have a new experience? Align with truth. The expansion of our spiritual nature is the most precious and powerful thing we can do. We don't need to give up life, we simply need to bring more of truth to who we are. Choose. The more exalted, the more heavenly, the more boundless, the more God-like or Christ-like a thought is, the more power it will have. Consistently align ourselves with unconditional love. Find anything that makes us feel good and make it our core belief for the day. Let us start looking for evidence of our well-being. Be joyously selfish.

This week, Dr. Patrick continues the Christmas theme of the Five Faces of Christ: Prophesy, Person, Principle, Presence, and Power. The Christ as the Universal Principle of Love has the power to change all things for good, for better, and to change them forever. For us on this planet, the combination of our physical form and our consciousness is the leading edge of creation. This is the place where Source energy is coming forward, no more exquisitely than in this dimension. Each partakes of the Christ Nature to the degree that the Christ is revealed through him, and to that degree, we become the Christ. Transformed people transform people! If we want to save the world, we save ourselves. To give birth to the Christ in this season of light, we have to invite It (the Principle) for It to show up for us.

Joy is an inside job! It isn't just a collection of happy moments; joy can even come through some of our saddest and most difficult times. Joy is our inheritance, but to be "invited to the joy party," we have to live in the present and be willing to leave behind our fears and insecurities. We need only take a bold step towards joy, and to bring our whole selves "to the party." "Life is infinite energy coupled with limitless creative imagination. It is the invisible essence and substance of every invisible form. Its nature is goodness, truth, wisdom, and beauty, as well as energy and imagination. Our highest satisfaction comes from a sense of conscious union with this invisible life. All human endeavour is an attempt to get back the first principles, to find such an inward wholeness that all sense of fear, doubt, and uncertainty vanishes." -- Ernest Holmes YouTube video: Diane Nyad: Never, Ever Give Up

This week, Dr. Patrick introduces the Five Faces of Christ: Prophesy, Person, Principle, Presence, and Power. Delving deeper into intuition and prophesy, we learn that intuition is the highest faculty in humanity: It comes to a point sometimes, where, with no process of reasoning at all, we instantly know. Right here, through our own nature, is the gateway and the path which leads to illumination, to realization, to inspiration, to the intuitive perception of everything. We have looked at poverty, degradation, and misery until they have assumed gigantic proportions. Now we must look at harmony, happiness, plenty, prosperity, peace, and right action until they appear.

Debt is a manifestation of doubt. It is an amazing spiritual practice and opportunity to examine our lives. It indicates that we have doubted our capacity to stand in co-creation with Spirit to live a more powerful and impactful life. To start moving our debts in a different direction, we should start flooding love into our financial relationships. Giving is the attitude with which we touch things. In order to have more in our lives, we need to give more.

This week, Dr. Patrick speaks on Eric Butterworth, a leading spokesperson in modern times on practical mysticism. Life is lived from the inside out. It's not what happens out there, but what we think about what happens out there. Go within in a time of silence, get renewed awareness of God as your resource, then go about your business affairs in the strong consciousness of the omnipresence of substance. Within us is a limitless, unborn potential of creativity and substance, that can be our greatest opportunity to give birth to it. Thus, the tragedy can become a blessing, the disadvantage can become an advantage, the failure can become an opportunity, and the disappointment can become a Divine appointment. Our life is God's gift to us---what we do with it is our gift to God. But it's not a god "up there"; it's the God in front of us and the wonders out there that we see and experience.

Conflict is the genesis of creation. It becomes a gift in our lives if we allow it to be a gift, to guide us, to nurture us, and to inspire us. Transformation and adaptation are our greatest human skills. Until we are tested, we don't know what we are made of. Consciousness creates circumstances. There are circumstances in our lives that we don't control, but we do control the way we interact with it. Consciousness is the key to all things which happen to us, and certainly the key to prosperity. It is about altering the inner states of mind that block the natural flow of life. Life isn't about finding ourselves---it's about creating ourselves. And we create ourselves through meeting adversity.

Eric Butterworth calls the restless drive for success "The Success Syndrome". It is a factor that is at once the key to success and the reason for much failure, because the tools that get us to the success are not the tools that will carry us forward to the next possibility. Many people succeed in getting to success, but are not convinced of their right to be there. This speaks to developing the consciousness of the thing. Success is not getting there; it's earning the right in consciousness to be there. We develop this through our practices, through practice. We do not receive what we want, we do not receive what we pray for, not even what we say we have faith in; we always receive what we expect. What is our work? How do we approach work? The delusive idea that men merely toil and work for the sake of preserving their bodies and procuring for themselves bread, houses, and clothing is degrading. It is not to be encouraged. The true origin of man's activity and creativeness lies in his increasing impulse to embody outside of himself the divine and spiritual elements within him. Gratitude releases a vital energy that draws to us opportunities, employment, and secure flow of substance. Everything begins to work in our lives in an orderly and creative way when we have a grateful heart. Our work can be a giving process. Let us not be trapped in the error of equating what we earn with what we do. Let our work, whatever it may involve, be an outworking of the creative flow engaged in through the sheer joy of fulfilling our Divine nature. Our Divine nature is to give.

Somewhere along the way, many of us picked up the belief that it is noble to be poor. But why? We can be anything---noble, helpful, selfless---and be full of the opportunities the Universe wants to send us. We can be rich, and live rich lives. "When we establish ourselves in the consciousness of God, when we seek first the kingdom, the whole Universe moves to flow into us with its abundance of its life and substance." -- Charles Fillmore We stand as an antenna of infinite possibility. Pharrell Williams video: youtu.be/0FnV1Scxh8Q

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honour the spiritual connection that grows from trust, respect, kindness, and affection. -- Brené Brown We live in a culture of scarcity that is based on shame. But as wholehearted people, we become adept at managing our shame triggers. We say to ourselves, "We are enough." We become proficient at love and belonging. We let go of what other people think. We have a gratitude practice. We learn to say no when it's appropriate, and yes when we're excited and engaged.

Our modern culture is full of fear, body-image issues, and the belief that being exhausted is a status symbol. We can choose to live differently---to live with courage instead of fear. Author Brené Brown teaches us that "the more grounded we are, the less we feel compelled to defend our decisions and protect ourselves. We can look at ourselves with compassion rather than self-loathing." And when we are able to do that, we live life more freely. We allow ourselves to rest and to play, and our work becomes focused on creating something of value. Play is essential to our growth, as Dr. Stuart Brown's video "Play is more than fun" explains. And why not dance all around the world with Matt Harding?

To live a healthy-minded life, at all levels of our being, is our opportunity and our gift. This Thanksgiving Sunday, Rev. Patrick brings together the two topics of gratitude and depression. We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, socially isolated, fast-food laden, sleep deprived, frenzied pace of modern life. To heal depression, Dr. Stephen Ilardi suggests we undertake therapeutic lifestyle changes: engage in physical exercise, balance omega-3 and omega-6 in our diet, experience sunlight, practice healthy sleep, engage in spiritual practice, reduce worrisome thoughts, and make social connections. Beauty and seduction are Nature's tools for survival because we protect what we fall in love with. They open our hearts and make us realize that we are part of Nature and not separate from it.

Rev. Jill Brocklehurst tells her story of disappointment and shame as she worked toward ordination within the Spiritual Living community. She speaks to us from the book The Power of Vulnerability by Dr. Brené Brown. Vulnerability is absolutely essential to wholehearted living. Shame is the fear of disconnection: Is there something about us, that if other people were to know it or see it, we wouldn't be worthy of connection? There are people who really struggle---they believe they are not worthy of love and belonging. In contrast, there are people who have worthiness---they live as wholehearted people, embodying the three characteristics of courage, compassion, and connection. Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear. It is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love. Vulnerability is absolutely essential to wholehearted living. We can develop the courage to be whole.

In this week's talk, Rev. Patrick discusses the history of our teaching, from Phineas Parkhurst Quimby to Ernest Holmes, and relates it to the healing work of Brazil's John of God. Our connection with Spirit, our mentality, always impresses upon the Infinite. The Law is infinite. It's right where we happen to be at any given time. And by conscious thinking, we give conscious direction to it. Consciously or unconsciously, it responds to our advance along the lines of our consciousness. There are two daily practices for life transformation: meditation, which is working silently in the law, and prayer work, which is for setting a new trajectory.

Water flows and finds its own level. In an analogous way, Spirit flows and finds Its outlet in us. What we draw from It, we must draw from the channels of our own mind. We can only draw from It in relation to what we are in our own thinking and being. Spirit only gives us what we can take; It can tell us only what we can understand. Its nature is to impart, and ours is to receive. In humility, we must meet Spirit half way. How much of the Infinite Good is ours? All of It. How much of It may we have to use? As much as we can embody.

The seed of freedom must be planted in the innermost being, and we must make the discovery for ourselves that it is there. Spiritual growth, similar to the choice to increase knowledge of any sort, occurs to the degree that we want to grow. The depth of our desire, our passion that we feel for wanting to know more of God, Spirit, and the nature of the Life Force that is within us, is always met with the corresponding response that supports and organizes and cultivates Itself through countless and sometimes very extraordinary capabilities within us. It is to the degree that we each honour our inner commitments that allows us to overcome resistance and obstacles. The degree to which we connect to this living Inner Force is the extent to which we change and grow spiritually. The nature of the Thing is universal Energy, Mind, Intelligence, and Spirit. It is the Cause of everything. It finds conscious and individualized centres of expression through us. There is no difference between It and us. Start in close. Take the step you don't want to take. Start with your own questions. Follow your own voice. Be humble.

The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person that we were intended to be. -- Oprah Winfrey Are we able to receive advice? How open are we to guidance? There are different forms of mentoring: learning side-by-side, planting a seed, tossing the student into a situation, and walking the path alongside the student. The mentor spirit is idealism, justice, unconditional regard, seeing and wanting the good in others. Be the mentor spirit---with integrity, let us walk the talk. Being in leadership, our job is to serve others.

God looks like beauty. God feels like joy. Our spiritual work is as difficult as we make it. The perfection that we seek is already a given---it is simply a matter of moving enough out of the way so that we can reveal it in a greater way. Thomas Troward said that it is our opportunity to bring unseen causes into form. We need to know what we're looking for. We want to get more out of life. We want to be more alive in ourselves. We want to improve conditions in our experience. The secret is getting more out of life to a continually progressive degree. We can all conceive something better. We all want to dip into love and joy. We can raise our calibration: Make a choice. Bless and be grateful. Heal the separation. Delete and add new programming.

Our thoughts have consequences so great that they create our reality. -- Joe Dispenza Is defining our present reality by what we perceive with our senses the biggest limitation we have? Or is it the biggest opportunity? Living our memories over and over again keeps us stuck in the past. But the brain can change the brain. Awareness is catching ourselves sooner than later when we start to spin inside our memories. Our tool for change is spiritual mind treatment. This is the process by which we change the way we think about ourselves in order to improve the quality of our lives and to make the world in which we live a better place to be. The purpose of spiritual mind treatment is to clarify our minds with spiritual truth in order to produce a spiritual realization, which is a felt sense of the reality of the truth in our souls, which is our divine connection. Every manifestation or demonstration of truth in our physical experience of life must be preceded by a spiritual realization in our souls. We always have the opportunity to plant a new seed.

The bond that links your true family is not the one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. -- Richard Bach Families we create, as we are drawn to certain people. We adopt mentors, both the ones we know personally and those we meet through books. As we model ourselves after them, they become part of our spiritual family. Our friends change---as we change---over time. Who we hang out with is so important. True friends have the courage to tell us when we are losing our way. They care enough to have difficult conversations with us. If we wish to have greatness in our lives, we need to surround ourselves with great people. The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances---if there is a reaction, both are transformed. -- Jung

What will we become? What do we want to be when we grow up? What job, what career? How will we make money? Will we be successful? Have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition, because they somehow already know what you truly want to become. -- Steve Jobs To gauge our self-awareness with respect to work, we should look at our personal history of work, reflecting on our relationship with work and our attitudes toward earning money. Does our work align with our values? Are we living a divided life? This speaks to the company we keep at work. Do we take our ego-self to work, or our ethical-self? As we do this, we build knowledge of our inner self in order to follow our own path. The true self is the Self planted in us in God's own image that wants nothing more or less for us than to be who we were created to be. -- Thomas Merton

Fear and doubt hate community. Their aim is to make us feel alone. Fear wants to isolate us and put us on an island. Yet we are all attached to certain tribes or communities. In community, there is collective wisdom. Community helps push us beyond our limits. In community, there is support in belief. Community provides new ideas. In community, we can borrow motivation. Community facilitates accountability. In community, we can share a "yes". The purpose for gathering together in community is the transformation of our consciousness. And the goal of our lives is to live, to connect with the Aliveness that is us. How do we measure our progress on the spiritual path? It's the degree of the absence of thought. When we quiet the mind and step more into being, we become more intelligent. We become more available to the Newness and the ideas that Spirit wants to express.

On the practice of patience, Rev. Patrick explores empathy as opposed to sympathy. Empathy is the fostering of connection with another. It is identifying with the emotional nature of the other. We can practice deep listening, which is listening with compassion, to help reduce the suffering of another's heart. By deep listening, we create the space that allows the other to pour out their heart. The power is in being present with the other.

Our task is not to search for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within ourselves that we have built against it. -- Rumi Patience is part of the description of love. Patience comes from our heart. It is a quality of kindness and love. Let us have patience with all things, but chiefly with ourselves. Let us not lose courage by considering our imperfections, but let us instantly set about remedying them, everyday beginning anew. If we can cultivate the right attitude, our enemies are our best spiritual teachers, because their presence provides us with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience, and understanding. When we remove the barriers from our heart, we realize that patience and love have been there all along. We are rooted in our goodness, in our love for others, in our ability to forgive. We have the ability to transform whatever happens in our lives.

A human being can alter his or her life by altering his or her mind. -- William James There are a variety of attitudes that we can adopt to enhance our practice of patience: Gratitude. Putting ourselves first. Being able to say no. Celebrating our successes. Knowing that we're still learning. Accepting that everyone is human, including ourselves. Believing in a happy future. Welcoming teachers of patience into our lives. Being here now.

If there is anything that gives kingliness to the soul, it is patience. A synonym for patience is self possession. This means being in charge of ourselves, where we determine the quality of our lives. Patience gives us greater tolerance and empathy. Patience grows our souls. Faith is knowing that something worthwhile will be realized, and this requires patience.

This week, Rev. Patrick continues with the second five of the Ten Laws of Healing: Understanding the mind/body connection Let energy flow Be a skeptical explorer Get support Take responsibility but give up control Healing is a process of protection and openness, of boundaries and free-flowing energy, of mastery and surrender. We are capable of making healthy choices that will help and heal our bodies.

Continuing the theme of meditation, Rev. Patrick discusses the first five of the Ten Laws of Healing: We care for the things that we love The body remembers Separating body image from body reality Coming into animal presence Listening to the body The soul is happy by nature. The soul is happiness itself. It becomes unhappy when something is the matter with its vehicle, its instrument. Care of the body is therefore the first and most important principle of religion. It is so powerful to envision our bodies as sacred vessels.

In this week's talk, Rev. Catherine McLeod tells of her journey to Tibet and teaches us about their ways of meditation. The primary mantra used by the Tibetan Buddhists is "Om Mani Padme Hum". This one mantra condenses all the teachings of the Buddha, and is used to extend the spiritual energy of compassion to ourselves and all beings.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. -- Rumi Mindfulness is the "on-ramp" to heartfulness. Heartfulness is training ourselves in the art of becoming ourselves. Developing intimacy with who we are---the bare-bones of present-moment awareness---is a muscle we can develop. Cultivating such awareness requires practice; it develops within us emotional intelligence, self-recognition, and self-regulation. Work of the eyes is done. Now go and do heart work.

We must court the Presence of the Divine. We must invite the Relationship to Source. Meditation helps us separate the fact of stress from our anxious reaction to it; it takes us deeper into the realms where language and thought lose their potency; it helps us develop compassion for ourselves. It is a way, an experience, an openness; a falling in love with a naked reality. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.

Want more for others than you want for yourself. Think from the end. Be an appreciator in life. Stay in rapport with Source Energy. Be aware of resistance. Contemplate yourself surrounded by the conditions that you want to create. Understand the art of allowing. Maintain a constant sense of gratitude. Realize that problems are never solved by condemning them. Be matched up with the Source of your being. Meditate (just be).

How rare is it to be incarnated as a human being? We are rare and precious in the eye of our Creator. We are here to be transformed by our journey. How will we be? How will we carry ourselves? Who will we love? What do we need to know? In each moment in our lives, we can practice Perfect Preparation. That is, we get to set our intentions before living. We get to set our purpose before we act. But purpose isn't about doing or having. It's about how we show up in the world, how we express the Divine through us in our own unique way. This purpose is like a calling, like the Word of God written upon our heart. Spirit whispers in our heart, calling us to be something more than we have ever been before. It is the Word of God in us, acting through us, in order to express Life as us with ever-increasing abundance.