I Learned Something Today......

Today I learned something.   More than something actually.   I learned about Taoism and Lao Tzu.  I was aware of these teachings but had never really looked at them.   Today I found that Taoism roughly dates back to approximately the fourth century BC and the Tao Te Ching as much a can be determined was written by Lao Tzu.  And whats more it was reportedly written when he was 80 years old.   Perhaps there is hope for me yet.  Here is a quote from Lao Tzu that says exactly what I have been trying to say for a long time. 
"If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself, if you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation."
Lao Tzu

Remember Gandhi...

64 years ago Mohandas Gandhi was murdered.  With the usual daily something on the news about the wars we fight and violence and death on the streets it is my desire to try to keep the peacemakers in front of us as much as possible.    We don’t hear nearly enough about the peacemakers.   Since the Harmonic Convergence in 1987 the energy of the world is slowly changing.  We are seeing a lot of violent change but we need to keep in mind that things are changing for the better.   Things cannot get better without the change but we will see that change eventually moving away from the difficult violent change to more peaceful change as time passes.    Remember Gandhi today, and tomorrow and next week.   Remember that he stood for non violent change.   Find your own peace.   Things are changing.   

Awakening is Awareness...

The built in search for meaning that humans have is the built in gps system that will help us remember our way back to the Creator.   Often however we bury that search in dogma or under the mass of human pain some encounter.   Do you know where your search is?  Awakening is Awareness.

Acknowledging, Praising, Thanking...

 

There is an old hymn called “For the Beauty of the Earth”.  The first few lines of which read:
“For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies”
This was originally a poem written by then 29 yr old Folliott S. Pierpoint (1835-1917).  
Wikipedia reports that “he was mesmerized by the beauty of the countryside that surrounded him.”
I often feel that way.    It is one of the reasons I take nature photographs.   It is my belief that we enrich our planet and our world when we acknowledge and praise its beauty.  Even as we enrich our children when we acknowledge and praise them.   And our friends and family and others around us.   I often acknowledge the beauty around me and even thank our sweet mother earth for her beauty.   It is a simple thing, acknowledging and praising and thanking.   Simple but with an unfathomable effect on that which is praised.  
“For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies”

Name Yourself......

If you could name yourself, give yourself a name, what would it be?  It is said that we have a name as a soul.  Some tribal societies and some cultures even now give a child a new name when they reach a certain age.   It is a rite of passage.  But much in western culture has gotten away from that kind of coming of age ritual.  So what name would you give yourself?  Think about it, a name describes us, makes a statement about who we are.   And deciding what we would name ourselves is a way of defining ourselves and deciding who we are.  You don’t have to tell anyone.  You don’t have to do anything about it.  Just think about what name you would give yourself and why. 
Who are you?

God...

God
Many are your names
Allah
Many worship you
Jehovah
Many call you by name
Yahweh
Many search for your face
I Am that I Am
Many are only learning to look inside
El
To find your true name we only need to
Love

Welcome to the Dragon....

Welcome to the year of the Dragon..... The water dragon even.   From the International Business Times: " The Year of the Dragon is a flowing river, not a stagnant lake, so things happen quickly earlier in the year. The Dragon marks progression, perseverance and auspiciousness. It may also bring about unpredictable events."  Being a water dragon it could mean floods of water or floods of abundance.  
Welcome to the dragon. 

Do you have a mind of your own?

Do you have a mind of your own?  According to THE FIFTH AGREEMENT by father and son Ruiz:
"Everything you think about yourself, everything you believe about yourself is because you learned it.  You learned the opinions from Mom, Dad, siblings, and society.  .....  And now you think so many things about what you are, but are they the truth?"
When we are little everything we are become comes from someone else and we take that into our adulthood and beyond.   Often we don't even know that.  So do you have a mind of your own?

What do you see?...

The most difficult part of solving the problems in our lives is recognizing them in the first place.  Many of us like the feel of our own fear or worry or anxiety.  Often we have learned to live off of the energy of the drama we create in our lives.   These kinds of problems are easiest to deal with if we catch them when we are fairly young because they can become very set in our lives if we don't.  The older we are the harder it is to realize that often our problems are internal and we can't deal with them till we recognize them.     Look in a mirror.... what do you see?

Life is a Problem to be Solved....

Life is a problem to be solved.  But there is within us the perfect problem solver, the master of anything we choose or even need.  All we have to do is decide what our problem is that needs solving and then seek inside for the master solver.    For some of us this is easy... For others of us it is not so easy.  Where are you at recognizing and solving your life's problem? 

Be all you want to be.....

Be all you can be.... is a motto of the recruiters of the US army.  But I want to talk about how we can be all we want to be in our own lives...  I think growing up one of the things I learned how to do very well was to fail.   And possibly part of that was learning the wrong definition of failure.   Anyway when I did not accomplish something that to me measured up to a success or I did not think it would be a success by those I cared about I considered what ever I had done as a failure.   One thing I did NOT learn was failure, so what, pick yourself up and start all over again.   I didn't have the self assurance to pick myself up and start all over again.   In fact I considered that if I did not accomplish something the first time how could I possibly accomplish it the second time.   If you find that you are having trouble picking yourself up or even getting started on something you really want to do look inside.  What are you good at?  painting?  Love? teaching? cooking?  cleaning?  poetry?  Inside you is an inner expert.  Everyone has them.  Jean Houston, one of the pioneers of "the human potential movement" tells the story that she does not like writing... has a phobia about it in fact, and yet has twenty some books out and countless unpublished manuscripts.  So how does she get past her phobia and write... she said she is a great cook and loves to cook and she learned that if she treats her writing like cooking.  start with a recipe, throw in a little of this, taste this.... and her books are written.   Cool idea... her inner cooking expert helps her write.     You can do it too.... find your inner expert and Be all you want to be.......

"Any One Here Seen my Old Friend Martin...."

In January we celebrate the lives of two men.   They are from separate parts of the world and different generations and yet both lived their lives promoting non-violent change.   Today is the celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.  He is known throughout the United States and many places elsewhere for his work on racial equality as well as freedom and human rights for all.   He was murdered on April 4, 1968, Shot while standing on the outside balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee.
20 years earlier, on January 30, 1948, on the steps of a building in Delhi, India, where he was to address a prayer meeting, Mohandas Gandhi was shot and killed.   Two men who used non violence to make the planet a better place to live, gunned down.  Tell me what it is about humans that we murder our good people.  
"Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?"....
"Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Some day soon, and it's a-gonna be one day ..."

From Abraham, Martin, and John by Dick Holler 

"Humanity is an Ocean......"

Mohandas Gandhi (October 2, 1869-January 30, 1948)  Indian leader and advocate of non violent civil disobedience made an permanent impact on this planet.  He was called Mahatma which means Great Soul and Bapu or Father by Indians he strove to live by non violence in everything he did.   
He was assassinated on January 30, 1948.   January 30 is now observed as Martyrs Day in India and School Day of Non Violence and Peace in Spain.   I think most of us have heard of this quote attributed to Gandhi:
  You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

I find this quote attributed to him also very interesting.  

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mohandas Gandh

Another that we might pay attention to:

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mohandas Gandhi

Keep Searching, Choosing and Doing.....

We talked of paths and choices.  Now let us talk of dreams and desires.   Stop and think about that which you most desire.    Then work toward that desire but don't do as I have done and quit when the going gets tough.  I always hated those sayings like 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going'.  I probably hated them because they were mostly true.  Then there is the excuse which has some truth to it also that sometime we are too busy making a living, or just plain trying to live our lives, that we don't have time to put into our dreams.   I suppose that is when we need to just keep searching, choosing and doing.   Doing doing and doing.   So take a look at your dreams and if they are really something worth doing then do. 

The Paths we Choose...

Very little of what happens in our lives doesn't involve some measure of choice on our part.   and after all those double negatives all I'm saying is that we make a lot of choices about what and how we live whether we realize it or not.  Realization of this allows us to take full responsibility for ourselves.  Sometimes all it takes is a realization of who we are and what we want out of life.  Acknowledging that it is ok for us to be ourselves, to like what we like, to make decisions based on who we decide that we are.   It is ok to be ourselves.  It is ok to take the path we choose we just need to be aware that we are choosing it.  

The truth is out there.....

The other night while flipping through the channels on my friends television I came across a show on the paranormal on the history channel.   I don't know when this show was first presented but it had sections on ghosts, mediumship,  ufos, and life after death.  It struck me that if people really want answers to those questions in the era of 2012 there is a lot of information available.   Many of these questions are answered by individuals that have done a lot of very thorough research. 
And one does not have to take any of these as total truth.  One should always be discerning.
There are also a lot more information available.  And as Kryon has said, whether we wish to beleive it or not.  All scripture has been channeled.  These are the websites of just a few of those researchers and most of them say that they had questions like this originally and were very skeptical until after they began to get into their research.   
Here are just a few:    
http://www.afterlifetv.com/
http://www.spiritualregression.org/
http://www.yoursoulsplan.com/
http://dolorescannon.com/

Trust in the connection.....

In the new energy when one takes on the spirituality that is not based on religion an individual will need to be able to trust in the their connection to God, the higher self, the Holy Spirit, the part of God that is within us.   And at least to those of us that have lived in this so called modern world this may be the most difficult part of it.  It is for me.   One can only set their intention....  Speak to God about it and try to go with the flow.   The story is told in the Old Testament how the Israelites were made to wonder in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights with no source of food except what was provided for them daily by God.  They had to depend on that for their food.  Could I go from day to day not knowing where I was going and how I was going to eat?  I am not sure.   and when I think about it, is that the way some street people live?  Is this what faith really is?  Am I learning to trust in my connection to God?  I hope so...

Interesting name, Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule is a perfect guide for living ones life and it is found in all major religions.

Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
      Matthew 7:1
Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
      Udana-Varga 5,1
Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
      Sunnah
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.
      Talmud, Shabbat 3id
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.
      Mahabharata 5,1517

Must be something to it if it is found in all of them.  Interesting name, Golden Rule.  

Children of God...

Last post we talked about expanding our definition and thoughts about God.   This time I want to encourage us to expand our definition about ourselves.   We are often told that humans were/are made in the image of God.   I believe it would be a little more accurate to say that we are made of the same stuff as God.   And that which makes us human is that not only are we made as the same stuff as God, we are also made of the same stuff as earth.   So we become a mixture of spirit and flesh tied together with the energy of God.   Not all of the energy of God because we would not be able to handle that but a spark, a flicker, contained in each of our DNA, of our Creator.   The Holy Spirit resides in our DNA and that is what makes our connection to Source.   We have never been encouraged to think of ourselves this way but it is becoming clearer that we should.  Children of God I think pretty well describes us.  Now the big job is claiming it.   

God is all that.... and more.

To the modern human the end and the beginning of the 365 day calendar is a completion of a cycle.  And so in that context we have just finished one such cycle, 2011 and began another, 2012.  At the beginning of this new cycle I would encourage you to expand your definition of God.  The problem we have had is that of making God in our image, which is basically the creation, in our own minds, of a super human figure, usually male and very old.   It is difficult to think outside of the human box to expand our definition of God but I would hope that it would make sense to do so to any human thinker.
We often talk about living forever.  It is a promise of heaven, it is supposedly what Vampires do.   So we are not unfamiliar of the concept.  But now, think of this 'forever' as having no beginning and no end.  Now think of the universe not as 'the universe' but of multiverses.....   numbered beyond human imagination, infinitely back in time and no end forward in the future.   God is all that.  And if God is all that, what does God do?  Make more of all that....  universes constantly created coming into being, others ending cycles and going back into 'all that'.  Energy constantly changing, forming, unforming but never dying.  God is all that......  In this new year I encourage you to expand your thinking a little.  God is too big for a single religion but as long as there are humans there will be humans trying to place God in a human size box.  A large one of course but still a human size box.   God is all that.... and more.