Quote from Conversations with God

"Inquire within, rather than without, asking: 'What part of my Self do I wish to experience now in the face of this calamity? What aspect of being do I choose to call forth?' For all of life exists as a tool of your own creation, and all of its events merely present themselves as as opportunities for you to decide, and be, Who You Are."

Quote by Anais Nin

The Lord's Prayer as Translated from the Aramaic

O, Birther of the Cosmos, focus your light within us -- make it useful
Create your reign of unity now
Your one desire then acts with ours,
As in all light,
So in all forms,
Grant us what we need each day in bread and insight:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of other's guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The song that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
I affirm this with my whole being.

by Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz of the Sufi Order of the West
Further information on Neil Douglas-Klotz

Caroline Myss on Intuition

The following quote is from a recent Caroline Myss Sacred Contracts radio show broadcast on HayHouse Radio:

We are all of us mulitsensory. The very thought that people think we only have five senses is so preposterous these days that I don’t even bother to stop and comment on it anymore. To me it’s in the same category as someone believing the world is flat. I just can’t even go there anymore.

The difference between someone who is refining their intuitive skills and someone who isn’t is a matter of self-esteem. It’s not a matter of meditation, and certainly it’s not a matter of what you eat. Someone with self-esteem can eat cat food and they’re going to do better than someone who goes to Whole Foods and shops and has low self-esteem. It’s all about trust.

Intuition is not about a skill to protect you from life’s journey. Intuition is about making choices that in the moment follow the guidance that is coming through. It is not about finding a way to make sure that the guidance you pick guarantees you will be protected.

Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you.

Life as a Dream -- Poe and Wilber

I found this quote by Edgar Allan Poe on a greeting card at Giant Eagle several weeks ago:

All that we may see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.

This morning I found a great quote by Ken Wilber about life-as-a-dream:

If you are having a dream and you think it's real, it can get very scary. Say you are dreaming you are tightrope walking across Niagara Falls. If you fall off, you plunge to your death. So you are walking very slowly, very carefully. Then suppose you start lucid dreaming, and you realise it's all a dream. What do you do? Become more cautious and careful? No, you start jumping up and down on the tightrope, you do flips, you bounce around, you have a ball - precisely because you know isn't real. When you realise it's a dream you can afford to play.

The same thing happens when you realise that ordinary life is a dream, just a movie, just a play. You don't become more cautious, more timid, more reserved. You start jumping up and down and doing flips, precisely because it's all a dream, it's all pure Emptiness. You don't feel less, you feel more - because you can afford to. You are no longer afraid of dying, and therefore you are not afraid of living. You become radical and wild, intense and vivid, shocking and silly. You let it all come pouring through, because it's all your dream.

Life then assumes its true intensity, its vivid luminosity, its radical effervescence.

-- from One Taste

Something I've Come to Know, Part I

Here is my current understanding of why we are here:

We are here to embrace with love the wounds of our past and the challenges of our present, seeing them as precious gifts which are constantly leading us to evolve into a higher level of consciousness. As we evolve into a higher level of consciousness, we are able to reflect more of who we truly are: spiritual beings who are here to love and be. Our egos, behaviors, emotions, and bodies are some of the tools that can help alert us to this grand truth.

One way to bring more consciousness to our lives is to become aware of the thoughts, memories, incidents, and interactions that trigger us, and then to get curious (without being judgmental) about the responses and reactions we have. The more we do this, the more we will come to realize that we do not have to be consumed and controlled by our egos, behaviors, emotions, and bodies – that we can allow our higher selves to become activated and to inform our human selves.