Spiritual Living Podcast Archive

Rev. Patrick continues his talk from last Sunday on the book The Five Levels of Attachment. The journey is about up-leveling our lives. The key to all transformation is awareness. We must remember to proceed with two things: self-respect and self-love. Let us find the capacity right now to love and respect ourselves.

Rev. Patrick looks at the Five Levels of Attachment by Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr.: The Authentic Self: Is knowledge controlling us or are we controlling knowledge? Preference: We use knowledge as a tool by which we engage our preference in life. Identity: We identify ourselves with knowledge, although we use it to see and understand the world. Internalization: Our identity in the form of our knowledge gives us the rules and guidelines by which we must live our life. Fanaticism: Our knowledge controls our every action. How do we move out of these levels of attachment? Fanaticism is a loss of humanity. We lose our compassion and our willingness to see another's point of view. So the way out of fanaticism is to move towards more compassion: Love for ourselves and love for others. The way out of internalization is to just stop believing in our own separateness from others. The way out of identity is to realize that we can take off our mask at any time. The way out of preference is to realize that we can disengage from our preferences at will. In this moment, we can find a place to love ourselves, and it's not contingent on us making changes, for that would lead to a conditional relationship with ourselves. Let us take the mask off and just love ourselves in this moment.

The Divine Feminine is the goddess tradition, which has been our story since before history. This tradition symbolizes balance, healing, renewal, and restoration. Our steps along the path of the Divine Feminine are simple: We agree that we are on this journey of consciousness, which is awareness of our divinity. We build that awareness through meditation, contemplation, forgiveness, and gratitude. We need to ask for guidance. We need to listen for the answer. In love, understanding, compassion, insight, intuition, creativity, forgiveness, healing, and wisdom, we always reach for the highest thought possible. Let us take our God-given talents and express them and use them.

God is able to make all grace abound toward us; that we, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. The enemy of prayer is inertia---resistance to change. If we'd like change to occur in our lives, then pray, pray, pray. It is the inertia within our consciousness that makes us feel like not praying. A life of prayer takes courage and a willingness to change. The great paradox of prayer is that when we need it the most, we don't feel like doing it. Yet, when we feel inspired and everything seems to be working in our lives, we tend to feel we don't need to pray either. The root of this paradox is the erroneous belief that prayer is a tool to solve problems. Prayer is something much greater than this---Prayer is a way of life. Let us pray every day whether we need it or not.

The simplest thing we teach is that the only moment is now. The hardest thing we teach is being in the present moment, because life is so full of distractions. Between this thought and the next thought is where we find our Connection. That is why practicing meditation is so important. We all long for a greater experience of the Infinite, a greater experience of God, a greater experience of Wholeness. We need to become that clean, hollow vessel. This means looking at things in our lives that are limiting our experience. The portal to the present moment is gratitude. Let us find things around us to be grateful about. Learn to be happy with less. Ernest Holmes put it simply: "Through the process of thinking, we are either repelling or attracting the life we want to live."

Rev. Patrick's spirit was renewed when he went to see the amazing mystic healer/medium John of God in Brazil. There is an incredible vibration of love present, and through it, revelations and healing come. For Rev. Patrick, the main revelation was this: "There is nothing to fear. There is an army of light, an unseen force for good, and all we have to do is ask for help. There is a Power for Good in the Universe that we can direct and use. And as we grow and evolve in our own consciousness, all of a sudden, it is not we using the Power, it is the Power using us." We are here to love. There is divinity living in each and every one of us. Not just some people---in all. Sometimes, the challenge is to not withhold our love... to realize we are in co-creation and to love freely.

In this week's talk, Rev. Connie Nissen contemplates the home. The spaces that we inhabit---that make up our home and workspace---reflect the state of our inner space. The interior design of our home is really a mirror of our own interior design. Where we live and what we live with are an extension of who we are. Our living quarters are a physical manifestation of our emotional wants and needs, a mirror of our thoughts, dreams, hopes, wishes, and issues. Soul Space is not about how we decorate our home, but how we care for ourselves, and how we create space that allows us to do that for ourselves. Through the creative process, we can emotionally dismantle ourselves and physically renovate our home. We can explore our feelings and attachments through examining the objects we own and the space we live in.

Speaking on how we as humans make use of our right brain and left brain, Rev. Catherine McLeod applies the ideas of current brain research to our daily lives in particular and to society as a whole. Einstein said that the intuitive mind is a sacred gift; the rational mind its servant. Ernest Holmes said that the intuitive mind is Spirit knowing Itself. We have lost this perspective in our technocratic, science-driven world. The right brain (intuitive) should be the spiritual master and the left brain (rational) should be the servant if we are wanting to create a world that's sustainable, that works for everyone.

This Easter Sunday, Rev. Patrick examines the symbolic history of the festivals and traditions of the holiday and the particular story of Mary Magdalene. The birth of the Christ is about the birth of Consciousness. The title "Christ" means nothing more than "The Anointed One", which represents God in human form. The anointing is the shifting in consciousness, the awakening. Alvin Boyd Kuhn wrote, "Easter is rightly the consummate festival of human joy, because it signalizes the god's release from his imprisonment in a body of what was to him virtually death." Our earthly nature is death, but our divine nature is freedom and joy. The Easter story of Mary Magdalene teaches us a great truth about the path to God. She is the symbolic stand-in for all the longing humanity, and for all who are considered sinners. Through her story, we learn that it is our mistakes that lead us to God. We come to Divine union not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong.

The wise and the thoughtful have never placed limitations or restrictions on themselves in their particular field of endeavor. Limitations are always easy to establish---in fact, too easy. Every time we reflect on our inability to do or accomplish something, we are setting up an increased barrier to the doing or accomplishing. Every time we have an alibi for undesirable results we may have achieved, we firmly establish the alibi as the limiting factor for our future activity. Every way we turn, we find that for the most part, we are spending our time setting up and maintaining limitations rather than removing them and moving ahead free and unrestricted. We have been using the limitless potential of the power of thought to impose limitations in every aspect of our lives. Once we become aware of this, the power of thought can be used more constructively.

Our journey is an ever-deepening process of healing. In fact, the healing is bringing forth that body of awareness we all contain. What keeps us from being that Presence on the planet? As we move through the kingdoms of consciousness, we first experience that everything is done to us. Then we experience that everything is done by us. Finally, we can experience that everything is done through us, which is the experience of co-creation with the Power of the Universe. Moving through these kingdoms requires practice. We must master the second kingdom before our consciousness is transformed into the third kingdom. Maybe we don't have to awaken humanity to its spiritual magnificence---All we have to do this day is to wake up ourselves, to look somewhere in our lives where we can be kinder to ourselves.

This week, Rev. Patrick interviews visiting Rev. Penny Macek with a series of questions about our teaching and how to apply it in our lives. The discussion covers our purpose for living, the four kingdoms of consciousness that we move through, and the concept of covenant and the power of covenant relationships.

We have to free ourselves from the habit of thinking in a small way, or that something may be too big or to good for us to experience. Our thoughts are the only limiting factor. The Law which responds to our thought is ready and able to accomplish all things. We can only use what we know. And the more we understand, the more we will be able to accomplish.

This week, Rev. Patrick helps us celebrate what we stand for. We encourage personal transformation and collective awakening. We practice the gift of active compassion and kindness through our service to all of life. We foster a world that works for the highest good of all, for everyone. God or Spirit, the Absolute, is a creative process in action, in everything, everywhere, always at once. Spirit God is love, intelligence, in relationship, expressing Itself as the universe in all life. There is one thing and one thing only that keeps the mind healthy---the knowledge of the presence of God in daily practice. In our spiritual practice, our thoughts are all we have to work on.

The power of love is underneath everything. And what love requires of us is our "yes" to life. We can transform our lives and our world through the transformation of our own consciousness. In fact, the only tool that we have is the transformation of consciousness.

Guest speaker Rev. Patrick Harbula speaks about life, resistance, peace, and joy. There's beauty in everything. Everything is perfect the way it is. Joy is not the opposite of sadness. Joy is this all-pervasive spiritual quality that can be present at any moment in time. We create our reality not from the presence of our personal self---we create our reality from our expanded self, our soul self. Our expanded self is creating this situation because there is something good in it for us, because there is an opportunity to simply move into a greater space of love, freedom, or joy. Our expanded self is choreographing everything perfectly. So, rather than asking, "What did I do to create this situation?", ask instead, "What's the greater joy, love, and freedom that wants to emerge here?" The only way to real peace is to give up resistance to what is. The ease in which we create what we want is directly related to the degree to which we accept what is. And then, we begin to find that life gets easier and easier.

Ernest Holmes once said, "We should all have something that we love to do. Something that will completely express the Self. Something that will loose the energies of life into action and turn the power into creative work. We should learn to love all people." What does the month of February, as the season of love, mean to us? Alison Armstrong describes Valentine's Day as the worst holiday we can imagine. A strange cultural ritual, it is often expressed as forced giving, forced intimacy. This whole position on Love---and how the world defines it---is reflected in Valentine's Day. It represents dependency, control, sentimentality, and emotionalism. In contrast, the strongest expression of unconditional love that we have is the love of a mother for her child. We can know that there is something within all of us that is complete and indestructible. When we no longer need a Valentine to validate our sense of self, we can say, "I am a being of love, and no one can diminish that. Infinite Intelligence and Spirit within me and around me and everywhere present, guide me and direct me in the highest and finest potential so that I can support myself in seeing with new eyes and new perception in loving the world."

Through a series of stories, Rev. Catherine speaks about the recent findings of neuroscience and brain research and how it can relate to our spiritual practice. In his research, Dr. Dan Siegel tracks where in the brain our emotions sit, and how information travels throughout our body. His work has shown that we can change our brain, our brain can change our mind, and our mind can in turn change our brain. Meditation can increase brain mass in the areas of the brain that carry loving-kindness, and can decrease brain mass in the areas that carry pain, anxiety, and worry. When we feel ourselves begin to be triggered by an unwanted event, we should take a few deep breaths and open ourselves up to this uninvited guest. Soon, our brilliance will take over. But if we instead react to the event, we either numb-out, leave, or fight. Emotional intelligence is to learn to go inside, experience our emotions, to sit quietly, to learn about our own intuition, and to be mindful. It's part of a healthy mental toolkit of things that we need to know how to do. In building up our emotional intelligence, we will create a life outlook of positive energy, of knowing that all is well.

The wisdom of Father Richard Rohr teaches us about the pattern of living in the false self. In the false self: We split from our shadow self and pretend to be our idealized self. This is living to impress others. We split our mind from our body and soul and live in our minds. This is being dissociated and compartmentalized. We split life from death and try to live our life without any death. This is living without release. We split our selves from other selves. This is trying to live apart, superior, and separate. Our spiritual work is thus to pursue living in the true self. It is the putting on of a new costume, which is more about dressing down, releasing the feeling of lack, the feeling that we're not lovable, releasing resistance in any area.

We feel connected and experience our greatest potential when we have mentors and are mentors to each other. When we pray in groups---do spiritual mind treatment together---we maximize our impact, in particular when we harmoniously treat for a higher state of consciousness. An essay by Ernest Holmes, the founder of our New Thought movement, inspires us to pray not for things, for individuals, or solutions to problems, but to pray for the greater good, for the group, for a higher consciousness. Our consciousness must change first before we can affect our lives, otherwise we are hopelessly affirming and denying that anything is wrong. "When a group of people come together with one accord and one thought, a greater power is generated, not because the creative power responds to a number of people more than it does to one, but because the combined faith of a group reaches a higher level of acceptance, and therefore group spiritual mind treatment should be definitely performed with the purpose in mind of arriving at a deeper conviction." -- Ernest Holmes We grow the most when we mentor others and seek out the mentorship of others, when we see the face of God in others and acknowledge it in ourselves.

The White Stone Ceremony---a symbol of releasing, renewal, and new beginnings. It is very important that we release painful things---things that are not helping us, things that are holding us back---but we must do so consciously, not carelessly. Mark Nepo in Facing the Lion, Being the Lion says "there is a crucial difference between gratefully burning what no longer works and coldly discarding what is still living because we don't have the patience to care for what has cared for us." We must face ourselves with wisdom and an honesty that knows the difference, so that we know which parts of our past to burn carefully---full of care---so we aren't just burning out of spite or anger or frustration, because behind every feeling is a belief. Only when we see the beliefs for what they truly are can we gratefully release the past, know the word of God for us, and be more free.

Our core beliefs and practices focus on transcendence. Transcendence is being tapped into a dream. The Hindus call it Prakriti, the Taoists call it Qi, the Christians call it Holy Ghost, and science calls it Energy. It is the intelligent activity of God's eminence revealing Itself as the Fruit of Spirit. Our spiritual journey is one of practicing gratitude. A state of continual gratitude is living in the state of Grace. When our gratitude is self-generated, it comes out of us as generosity. Let us be eternally grateful for the presence of Good in our lives---and that Good is our God.

Stanley Kunitz has said that art is the chalice into which we pour the wine of transcendence. Rev. Patrick talks about transcendence and the need for community. What does it mean to have a spiritual experience? What does it mean to be a spiritual teacher? To be a healer? We must have the desire to change, the experience of illumination, and the intuitive contact with the ultimate reality that theologians call the Godhead. We seek the simultaneous perception of the sacred and the ordinary. It is the mystical experience, not as climactic, but as a constant incremental experience.

Audience artist and musician Karl Anthony takes us on a musical journey of discovering and expressing our gifts to connect to the community around us.

In this time of collective mourning, Rev. Patrick asks, "How do we look at the world? How do we filter the events that come before us? What do we do with our cracked-open heart?" We know that there is no private good. Likewise, there is no private sorrow. We all share in the experience. The trouble with steeling ourselves against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures our life against being destroyed secures our life also from being opened up and transformed. The path to our healing takes the form of surrender---surrender to the Divine Presence, to the One.

Ernest Holmes wrote on finding the Christ, "We believe in our own soul---the only immediate testimony you and I will ever have that we existed or that God existed or that Jesus showed us a way. We believe in every way-shower. We glean from them what is valuable for us in this moment and leave the rest behind." From Brennan Manning we learn: "Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If we are not in touch with our own belovedness, then we cannot touch the sacredness of others. If we are estranged from ourselves, we are likewise a stranger to others."

We are a mystical teaching, and we approach the Christmas story and Christmas season in a mystical way. Ernest Holmes stated it this way in the Science of Mind: "Who is Christ? The Son, begotten of the only Father---not the 'only begotten Son of God.' The mystical conception of Christ means the Universality of Sonship, embodied in any individual who recognizes this Sonship." We are the ones who may recognize our Sonship with God. The point of Christmas is to give birth and bring to life the Christ Consciousness within ourselves. Our goal is to find the Christ. Declare our word to be the presence, the power, and the activity of this One.

In every situation we can ask, "What level of consciousness is operating here?" Is love at work in our lives, or is it fear? There's an era of awakening that's happening on our planet wherein we consult with our intuition and allow others to consult with theirs. And with our intuition engaged, we may begin to live life with an empowered heart. Success is not to be pursued but attracted by the people we become.

Is our spiritual life our priority? Our life doesn't get better by chance---it gets better by choice. Our intentions are causes that create effects. For us as humans, choosing an intention is the fundamental creative act. Christ is the truth of who we are. That Christ is the individualized essence, the activity of God, Love In Us, the Light of the Living God. Moreover, that Consciousness is still alive and still evolving. It continues to evolve in us, through us, and as us. Love looks like beauty. Love feels like joy. We are a community of love that expresses beauty and joy at their highest possibilities and potentials.

"Change your thinking, change your life." We get this intellectually. But how do we internalize these words? How do we begin to transform our lives? Step by step, with practice, we learn to change the thinking we do. We learn to apply that thinking into our lives. Then we start to use what we know in a practical way. And the Universe yields to us according to the habit of our thought.

Let us be the presence of love. Spiritual partnership is learning to love in a new way. It requires commitment and courage. The commitment is to make our spiritual growth the number one priority in our lives. The courage is to choose to love when we don't want to choose it.

The road to hell is covered in our B.S., our belief system. Intentions are always good at their source. And our intentions start at the centre of our being. But they can go bad when they get filtered by our false beliefs and our hidden fears. Unthinking our false beliefs takes committed practice. This prayer works. Practice is cultivating the soil of silence so that God can grow through us.

In today's talk, guest speaker Dr. Joyce Hawkes speaks about the cells in our body, our deepening scientific understanding of our bodies, and our innate ability to heal. There are approximately 100 trillion cells in the body. We are a walking, amazing life form, full of the energy of creation that penetrates all universes. How can we open ourselves to the mystery of life and to the mystery of what is not known? The healing gift is in each and every one of us. It is innate. It is native. Our bodies are magnificent. Let us enjoy the vessel that the Creator has given us for our consciousness to ride around in.

There are two activities taking place on the planet right now. First, everyone is becoming more awake. Second, among those who are awakening, there are individuals that choose to live their lives with intention. Day to day, it's the vibration, or intention, behind our thoughts that counts. The "why beneath the why" is the intention that ultimately creates.

When unexpected, tragic things happen, like a sudden death, we are faced with the opportunity to choose, moment by moment, what our attitude will be. We need to breathe and be present with ourselves. What we need to know in this moment will be made clear, and we will have every resource we need. We all need spiritual partners to help us along. Friends are not spiritual partners. Spiritual partners do spiritual work together, and once it is done, they part ways. Friends are with you to buffer you from the wind; spiritual partners are there to ask you questions about the wind. When we feel powerless because of a tragedy, it reminds us that it was never our power---we never did have power over death. What we have power over is our response to things that happen.

Wayne Lee leads a vibrant, fun overview and demonstration of hypnosis. He explores how we often hypnotize ourselves with our beliefs and the power of thought. Wayne tells us how we can program our "GPS"---Goal-setting, Pretending, and Stress-managing system (our feelings).

Today is Global Outreach Sunday, promoted by the team called Global Services. It is a day about honouring the nomads that move out into the world and touch lives. It is an idea of taking our teaching outside the walls of the Centre through service to humanity, through meeting individuals' physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Every life that we touch is part of the whole. Every light that is transformed is a light in the world that transforms more lives. Dennis Merritt Jones said it this way: "If we are willing to look deeply enough into one another, we will be able to see what we have in common. In short, we will remember to remember that there is only One of us here. Contained with the wisdom of this awareness lies the potential for a lasting peace in the world."

The labyrinth is a substitute for the pilgrimage. Both represent a journey inward. Always at the heart of pilgrimage is the question that forces us to leave home, seek a retreat, or go on a vision quest. In a pilgrimage, we are calling on God, crying out for a vision. A vision may reveal a new vocation, a new name, or even our life purpose. The answer may come in the form of a dream, a chance meeting, a surge of inspiration, a voice in our head, or an overpowering emotion. The point is to break with our everyday patterns, to move out of our comfortable and familiar habits. We must be intent in searching for soul. When we return from a pilgrimage, we can take this advice: "Know that your vision will follow you back and must be incorporated into your life and the lives of those you know. And the best way to communicate your experience to others is not to talk about it but to live it."

Rev. Patrick discusses the call to face conflict through the stories of Martin Luther King, Jr. and William Went, an Episcopalian minister. The latter was "willing to accept the penalties in order to arouse the consciousness of the community over its injustice." Part of hearing the call to greatness in our lives is making ourselves ready and receptive through our spiritual practices. Leonard Cohen said it this way: "There's a crack in everything, and that's how the light gets in." The spiritual masters teach us this: We are somehow the issue. The answer is within us. We need help from a higher power. So let's keep waking up together.

It is difficult to explain the amazing value that comes from the classes the Centre offers. The classes help us to wake up---and shake things up. As new things come along in our lives, we can ask: (1) Is this right for me? (2) Am I willing to be led? Although living a life of ease and grace is nice, that's not when we really grow.

Real Love is all about seeking and being focussed on the happiness of the other person rather than what we can get. When we tell the truth, it becomes the opening for love. We are a community that nurtures, teaches, and fosters the transformation of consciousness. "Transformed people tend to transform people." We need people in our lives that stretch us and model the possibility for us. In this way, we learn that spirituality is "caught" not taught.

The title of today's talk is "The Longest Journey with the Sweetest Destination." The long journey is to a profound realization, to see what our beliefs really are, to learn where our resistance or false beliefs are. Every feeling is a belief. When we have a negative feeling, we need to stay with it. Negative feelings can lead us to the truth of what we believe---our own internal life, the sum of the beliefs we have, even those that are false. "We must be willing to look at a thing until it has no power over us." -- Ernest Holmes

Most people have no insight or awareness about their experiences of life. They don't even know that this is possible. We call this victim consciousness. But our pathway is the journey to new insight into our experiences of life. The Great Law of Life is this: It is done unto us as we believe. In other words, we receive what we believe. So what is a belief? It is a deeply suppressed emotional impulse that expresses itself unconsciously through us in order to produce experiences in our lives. It is who and what we are. But we are not stuck there. We can then ask, what do we want to believe? Earthly karma is not always fair, but divine karma always balances it out.

From the teachings of Greg Baer, Rev. Patrick speaks about real love. When we tell the truth, we enter the portal to real love. The truth is the pathway. Real love is the commitment to the happiness of the other without expecting anything in return. As we examine our pain from the past, we must realize that it was not our fault. But it is our responsibility---and our opportunity---to heal it now.

James O'Dea writes about the importance of cultivating three qualities in our leaders and in ourselves: empathy, the ability to have meaningful dialogue, and holistic thinking. Neurologists have learned that a depressed person's brain patterns jump---become less depressed---when simply in the presence of happy people. We are connected at the head and at the heart---many branches of science have even shown this to be true. When one person reaches out to another, we can affect each other, without even saying anything. When we cultivate wholeness in ourselves we cultivate it in others too.

Rev. Connie Nissen speaks about soul-searching and looking at our belief systems. From Ernest Holmes, we learn that every thought and idea necessary for a thing to become manifest is happening now, more abundantly than we could ever imagine. We first recognize that there is a power for good in the Universe. We can bless everyone. We can use this power for definite purposes. As we practice, something in consciousness will shift. We acquire this habit of spiritual practice with repetition, knowing that as the rain falls on everyone, God is present everywhere to everyone. So of course, we are good enough to use this power. Remember that God is always available, always near us, and always willing to reveal Itself, to the degree we are willing to know Its presence.

"Words without thoughts do not to heaven go." It is the consciousness and the vibration beneath the words that have the impact on our prayer work. The pursuit of happiness is not a destination---it's a process. All of our spiritual work is done in the here and now.

Miracle-working is a sign of being absolutely united with Spirit. Using the life story of activist Margaret Sanger, Rev. Patrick relates how the Science of Mind teaching shows up in the world. Margaret Sanger's life motto was: "Build thou beyond thyself, but first be sure that thou thyself be strong and healthy in body and mind." Ernest Holmes said, "There's a power for good and we can use it. And it can use us. It is right here. It is nearer than our own breath. It is done unto us as we believe." The power that we use is based on our conviction. We do not need to say, "Am I good enough to use this power?"

"Yes, change is possible. No matter what our background, each of us is the creator of his or her own destiny. Our thoughts, our words, and our deeds create the experience that is our future. Everything has its own place, everything is sacred, and everything is interconnected. All experiences can be integrated into realizing the path to innate perfection."

All thought creates. But what gives thought even greater potential and possibility is clarity. In our spiritual work, we think of the process as the goal, not the destination. We connect to who and what we are. We don't pray to something, we pray from a consciousness. And when there's peace inside us, that peace permeates to the outside, affecting others.