Sacred Practices

Spiritual Resilience Today May 21st at 1 PM PDT, 4 PM EDT on AcimGatherRadio broadcast. Go to www.acimgatherradio.org and follow the links to Paltalk and/or the radio. Please join us for an hour of discovery.

Have you ever wondered why come people seem to withstand the hardships they face in life better than others? Why do some people seemingly effortlessly walk through their daily life in a reverent and spiritual manner, while others struggle daily to keep their focus on the divine?

Resilience is the ability to withstand trauma, incidences and life changes by bouncing back to a state of consciousness before the event or by gaining strength through the incident. Synonyms such flexibility, strength, and spirit gives us insight into the functioning of resilience.

In the past we have often thought that certain attributes such as resilience, leadership, and achievement were based on a born trait. As we become more aware of the existential paradigm of life it is apparent that these traits are with in all of us and can be learned.

What we know about people who are resilient.

People who display great resilience see the world not as against them or even challenging but rather a place to grow and form relationships. When trauma of any kind presents itself, they take the opportunity to seek out the lesson. They perceive the world through eyes and mind of someone who is curious and willing to deal with what it handed to them.

A resilient person knows that change of all kind is always happening. They don’t expect the world to stay static. This includes their relationships.

When crisis presents itself they don’t perceive it as an insurmountable problem, but rather seek solutions and are willing to take time and tenaciousness to resolve the issues.

A resilient person lives in the here and now. They don’t deny the crisis or the problem, but rather embrace it as a part of the ongoing life around them. They embrace a problem as an opportunity to grow.

They love themselves; nurture their life, self, soul, and spirit. Embracing their talents and shortcomings with acceptance and love.

They keep life in perspective and avoid blowing things out of proportion. Looking at the wider viewpoint, they keep incidents in perspective to the overall flow of life.

The resilient are always looking for the pony. They are hopeful (hope is different from wishful thinking or fantasizing about a maybe life). Deep in the depths of their consciousness they know miracles can and do happen every minute of everyday.

They embrace their spiritual nature, accepting that they are at one with all life. They understand responsibility and reflecting consciousness as the foundation of a spiritual life.

© Suzanne Deakins
Intentional Consciousness

The Spirituality of Ethics and Morals. Today Tuesday May 7 at 1 PM Pacific time, 4 PM EST on ACIMGatherRadio Broadcast. Please join us for an hour of discovery.

Being spiritual, religious, or pious does not automatically mean you act and think in terms of ethics and morals. The definitions of ethics and morals are very abstract. Mirriam-Webster’s dictionary defines ethics as being the discipline of dealing with good and bad moral obligation.

I am going to step off a cliff here and say ethics and morals do NOT deal with bad or good or even moral obligation, but rather another aspect of our life. It doesn’t take much to look back on history and see how those who called themself servants of God, spiritually focused, and righteously religious were often the worst perpetrators of atrocities of human kind.

What one person sees as right and in the name of God is not always that god-like, but rather ego deciding and making a judgment. True ethics are an internal mechanism that is void of ego making a judgment on what is good or bad. Ethics deal with the ability to see that all life is connected, that there is a wholistic principle at work. When we base our thinking on good and bad and make judgment we are using dualistic thinking. Trying to divide our being from Truth/God. It is like saying I know I can make 2 + 2 = 5 work on my checkbook.

To think that ethics and moral obligations can be regulate by rules or laws is to say Truth and God manifest according to ego. The most laws and rules can do is to make a statement. They do not force anyone into a certain behavior. When we treat others with our personal (ego) ethics we say I have more god, more truth than you. I am separate from you. Only when we approach all life as being of God/Truth can we experience the equality of life, the eternal newness, and love that is the creative force.

© 2013 by Suzanne Deakins
When God Whispers

There are many books written about creation that have not been included in the Bible. Regardless of whether the stories are true or not, is not as important as the archetypes they represent.  We call ourselves children of God. It is important to understand how that came to be so we might be released from identifying our human body as the reality of God.

In translations of forgotten texts, it is apparent that Adam and Eve existed not as a flesh body but as “light” in the image of their creator. Only when cast from the Garden for their transgression did the creator/God form a flesh body for them.  These translations show that the earth was created to accommodate the flesh body until the time of salvation. Their transgression against God was that they interrupted the creation of God. In God’s conversation with Adam, he asks Adam why he did not think of these things before he transgressed, indicating that Adam and Eve already had the knowledge of “right and wrong.”

Originally, it appears that Adam and Eve were next to God. As they were of the same light, they were the children of God. Other angels and cherubs were afraid of them as they were of God. When they (Adam and Eve) were turned into flesh, the angels were no longer afraid of them.

From a standpoint of archetypes, our nature or image  in the likeness of God is not the physical body, but our identity lies in the light and fire we are in reality. We have been lead to believe that our bodies are the image and nature of God and therefore our identity. But the truth of our being, our identity, is the light and fire is the nature of our creator/God.

Adam and Eve transgressed (no word such as sin in the early texts) against the spiritual/creative laws set down by the Father /God. This transgression interrupts the act of creation.  This transgression plays out where Adam and Eve begin to understand that their punishment (being put into a flesh body) separates them from the fire/light they are and their consciousness.

“Then Adam said to Eve, “See this fire of which we have a portion in us: which formerly yielded to us, but no longer does so, now that we have transgressed the limit of creation, and changed our condition, and our nature is altered. But the fire is not changed in its nature, nor altered from its creation. Therefore has it now power over us; and when we come near it, it scorches our flesh.”

God’s protagonist, Satan, tries to convince Adam and Eve not to put on the clothing made of sheepskin. This is to convince them that they do not need to understand their humanity to be accepted back into the Garden. But God has told him that they must accept their humanity and at the same time understand that they are his children of the same image and nature, of light and fire.

Satan tries to convince Adam and Eve to be afraid of the fire (Creative aspect/sexuality). While God reassures Adam and Eve this is of his nature and therefore of theirs.

Eighty-three days after Adam and Eve left the Garden they have neither eaten nor had water to drink. God gives them figs from the Garden and it does not agree with their bodies.

Then Adam besought the Lord and said, “O Lord, let us not perish through the food we have eaten. O Lord, smite us not; but deal with us according to Thy great mercy, and forsake us not until the day of the promise Thou hast made us.”

6 Then God looked upon them, and at once fitted them for eating food; as unto this day; so that they should not perish.

7 Then Adam and Eve came back into the cave sorrowful and weeping because of the alteration in their nature. And they both knew from that hour that they were altered beings, that their hope of returning to the garden was now cut off; and that they could not enter it.

8 For that now their bodies had strange functions; and all flesh that requires food and drink for its existence cannot be in the garden.

This is rather long, but an important lesson, because it helps us to understand our flesh body and our relationship to God. As Adam and Eve discover their flesh and its needs God reassures them he is still their father. He doesn’t have them deny their body…but rather understand it and its relationship to him as the father of all creation. He assures them they are his children. We are all children of God. However, our identity as a child of God is not the flesh we seeming live within, but our light and fire that is the nature of God.

Adam and Eve, like many of us, prayed to God to take away the burden and grief of the flesh. But God instructed them to be righteous and ignore the darkness and to know that his covenant would sustain humanity forever.

To know our body is not our identity is not to deny the body, but to understand that it represents the fire and light we had from the very beginning. We aren’t limited by our flesh.

God never hid or ignored Adam and Eve, but rather answered their prayers for guidance and understanding of their fleshy existence.

@2011 Suzanne Deakins

When God Whispers

Released 12/2011

Spiritual Health or Its Scary To Become Older

A recent visit to my endocrinologist brought good news. My minor efforts were producing good results. In my conversation with my doctor, I mentioned my friend I have been helping. It has become abundantly clear that to age gracefully with freedom and independence we must move our bodies. When I mentioned this to the doctor she replied yes, beyond the health benefits movement itself gives us a greater chance at remaining independent.

Looking at the nature of reality it is clear that movement of all types is necessary for spiritual, emotional, and physical health. Our physical life is often a soft reflection of our spiritual endeavors. All the mantras, prayers, and Translations will not help us if we refuse to move forward and let our past and old beliefs go. Haunting memories that invade our consciousness and block us with fear and anxiety bind us in a way we no longer move or flow with consciousness.

Believing today should be like yesterday is a big trap. When we pre determined how our life should play out, we block all that can happen and be given to us. If we base our understandings and beliefs on that which is principle, is without limitations, ever evenly present, we are free to move forward without predictions. We are freed so our life may unfold into the wonder of Truth… When we visualize and set our course to an old ideal we are bound by that in our consciousness and our unconscious sets us on autopilot going directly toward the old belief.

The only course we must take to remain spiritually healthy is an interior review of our beliefs and a release of our thinking from those ideas that keep us from knowing we are the Truth manifesting in infinite variety. Any thing less than this keeps us stiff, and earth bound in our thinking. Our native habitat is the stars.

This is a sweet journey we take, may your dreams be filled with laughter and joy for the pain you have known is only an indicator of the depth of the Truth and love that awaits you as you release you self from that which held you back.

© 2013 Suzanne Deakins
When God Whispers

Are You A Taker or a Giver? Tuesday April 16 at 1 PM PST (4 PM EST) on www.AcimGatherRadio.org follow the links to Paltalk and/or the radio. Please join us for an hour of discovery.

The first thing that I learned when I started on this journey was the idea that I needed to unlearn some very bad habits. The habits we have are connected to our thinking, emotions, and perspective of our life. They are, for the most part, generated by our ego. Our ego has a vested interest in remaining stuck in these beliefs. And the beliefs and habits generate are connected with the illusion of who we think we are.

From the time we are small we are told someone is our parents, that we are of a certain clan or tribe (many times this information is non verbal but just as stultifying as if verbal). Our thinking and emotions are filled with the illusions of false identity. Our Truth and true identity are hidden deep with in the abyss, and our soul is covered with layers of learning that leave us feeling void and empty.

I like to think of this state of being as the big hunger. We hunger for true connection and we hunger for our soul. But, we don’t know how to fill that hunger. So our ego becomes greedy and a taker. Because we are separated off from our true identity we have no idea that taking and being greedy is our ego’s way of trying to fill the gaping emptiness we feel. Caught in an endless cycle of the ego we repeat the patterns, beliefs, and habits we learned before we were even born.

T

he Way Out

The way out is simple and elegant. We must unlearn what we thought was so. We must uncover who we really are, our true identity. As we unlearn the old habits of taking and greed we begin to peel back the layers of ego. The closer we get to a moment of absolute knowing who we are, the closer we are to embracing our soul.

Letting go of the ego is not always easy. It fights to retain the beliefs and investment it has made into thinking only by taking can it survive. Through diligent self-observation we can see when we are being greedy in our thinking, emotions, and actions. Because we have separated our being from its true identity it feels chaotic and even emotionally painful to unlearn. Who will we be? How will we survive? Our ego may even tell us that we are a fool to trust this innocent and giving self. After all winners are takers… or so our ego believes. As you embrace your soul you will find you are no longer hungry for things, no longer hungry for excess of any kind. You can earnestly turn to the father within and say thank you. As you let go of these false concepts about yourself you find even happiness is not something you must work for , for it is always present for you.

To be a giver your energy must move from in-to-out. It does not dwell on the return for it is one movement and not necessary for it to come back. In a state of true giving you are both the giver and receiver without thought. You are consciousness, conscious of consciousness. You are connected to all life.

Like all life being a giver is a matter of degrees and we all hold pockets of ego that needs to be unlearned so we may experience the reality that we are one mind, one soul, Truth, knowing all life as whole, complete, and perfect.

© 2013 by Suzanne Deakins
When God Whispers

Finding Courage Tuesday April 9 at 1 PM PST; 4 PM EST on AcimGatherRadio Broadcast. Go to www.acimgatherradio.org and follow the links to Paltalk and/or the radio. Please join for an hour of discovery.

Shame and guilt are haunting emotions for everyone. Shame and guilt separate us from others, from our sense of the divine, and Truth. All physical, emotional and spiritual pain is a product of being separated from our true identity.

Shame is a product of the ego seducing us into striving for worldly perfection. Perfection is seductive. When we feel we have not been perfect, not good enough … not perfect for the situation…we feel shame. When we feel shame we are separated from our spirit and numb. Our ego becomes defensive. We begin living in an existential void. The more we feel separated from Truth/God/Higher consciousness the more we feel shame.

Shame, guilt, and pain play an important part in our consciousness. They show us where we are allowing the ego to dictate our consciousness of a situation and separate us off from Truth in our emotions and thinking. When we embrace shame, as an indicator, rather than something bad we allow ourselves to become more human, to connect to the nature of reality, Truth.

It would seem almost impossible with the Internet, smart phones, and TV to feel disconnected but, it appears the more we connect via electronic means the more we fear the real connections. We hide in our fear, afraid we are not worthy of a physical connection to others and life. Using false names, nicknames, and playing out make believe lives we find we fall deeper into the realm of the ego and the land of fear.

Shame, fear, and guilt are all cries of our higher self for connection… cries to cross the great river of Truth so that we may leave the land of existential void and come to the land of milk and honey and connection to all life.

The first step in finding real connection is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. To make a connection you must be seen and vulnerable. When we are not vulnerable to Truth/God we numb our self to joy, happiness, and the precious reality we call connection. Only in a state of vulnerability of surrender do we know Truth or God.

When you reach out and are vulnerable you find true intimacy, you trust, and have connection. In an act of vulnerability you are truly courageous. Like the willow tree, as you become vulnerable to the wind you find your strength. You can bend and flow with the consciousness. When you are vulnerable and surrender you are strong NOT weak. To be courageous you must be engaged, connected and functioning within the reality of the moment, which is always consciousness aware of itself as consciousness. Your vulnerability is the most accurate measure of courage.

Out of a state of surrender and vulnerability you are able to have the courage to be truly creative, embrace all change, being innovative with what consciousness is presenting you.

Embrace the shame, guilt, and fear. See them as a pathway to courage. As you embrace them they pass through you… into the realm of nothingness as you find the courage to be truly intimate with Truth, God, and yourself.

© 2013 by Suzanne Deakins

Please join us for an hour of discovery Tuesday March 5 at 1 PM Pacific Time (4 PM EST) on AcimGather Broadcast. Go to www.acimgatherradio.org and follow the links to Paltalk and/or the radio. You will find us an open and welcoming group.

Finding Wisdom

It has always been my assumption that if we became more spiritual or increased our spiritual intelligence we would naturally become wiser. In fact this does not always happen. Wisdom is not a combination of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional intelligence but is a deep realization of the nature of reality, or truth.

When we are wise we are able to understand the emotions, and intellectual reactions of those around us. Finding wisdom isn’t easy. It demands we leave behind our mechanical reactions and views of the life. To be wise we must become observant in an objective state of insight. We can only become objective when we are able to step outside of our beliefs and social conditioning. To be objective means you are free of egoism, see the reality of a situation, and can cooperate with others.

Those who are wise are truly human, not mechanically human, but human in their ability to be compassionate and loving in a objective manner. The compassion and love is not mechanical, or to gain acceptance but a warm embrace of life itself, of the individual expression of reality. In a very real sense wisdom and those who carry it are the creators of our future. They hold the light of understanding and their grasp of reality and truth allows a future to unfold or manifest as truth. Those who hold on to old beliefs and emotional garbage, refusing to release and use authentic forgiveness are simply caught on a wheel that repeats itself over and over.

To be wise you must have a large capacity to be creative, non mechanical in your reactions, and existential in your outlook on life. With wisdom you hold the torch of tomorrow, laying down a new path for those around you. A path filled with compassion, love, and expression of truth. Filled with wisdom, you are the creator of life, of consciousness. You join a great hosanna of those who have walked the earth to bring about a consciousness of peace and love.

Become wise, release old beliefs; observe yourself and see your mechanical reactions to those around you; realize that all life is connected; know that all you see and sense is within your consciousness. When you walk the path of wisdom you create a world of joy.

© 2013 Suzanne Deakins
Intentional Consciousness

How is retirement going for you? I am often asked, as if one’s life only contains dull and uneventful days. That’s not been the case, each month has contained some surprise. In “SoCa” with its temperate climate, February, had only a few cold and rainy days, made for a pleasant winter, bringing an array of possible activities to do or not do, depending on your mood. Winter’s are usually gone before we have a chance to dress ourselves up to meet it. February, the shortest month, seems to be the longest of winter months. Maybe because March (colder or rainier) holds the promise of Spring (this year is March 20, 2013.) We’ve waited for it, like we wait for a lover’s embrace- It’s not yet held, but whose footsteps are bringing us closer.

February was appalling for my exercise program. My excuse: it was too cold or wet. If I had been more motivated like many of my fellow senior’s and gym rats at the gymnasium, I would have smiled through the discomforts, like those that strut around with wide grins and sculpted bodies, and whose ‘joie de vivre’ is usually published in Health and Fitness’ magazines.

Speaking of smiles, I did spend time this February, putting my money where my mouth is. I have always said, “My mouth is my fortune, at least where my Dentist’s pockets are concerned. I went under torture developed out of the Middle Ages – cracking, pulling, and scraping, of teeth and gums. Well if nothing else, let’s hope that smile will hide those extra pounds put on in December, January & February. Weather has a lot to do with my motivation, because I have one of those solar generated bodies ready to activate once sunlight hits and days grow longer.

My gardening efforts are an example – you would have thought we had severe weather conditions from the looks of those plants. Nothing done in the yard since December 2012, rather I became the arm chair gardener, browsing seed and garden catalogs with wishful abandonment.

February Chinese New Year, celebrated in my own fashion, not with fireworks and dragons parades in colors of red and gold – but a Meditative state to translate welcoming a new year and chasing away the old one.

Travel is a monthly trip to Laguna Beach, to visit with friends and pick up my mail. February also found me on the road to California’s Central Valley to visit family. The drive gave an opportunity to see nature spread out in this agricultural setting. A quiet joy is felt as leaving noisy city streets, for the road over rolling hills, where sun shines on fields of bare branched trees and vines with their promise of new life. The senses treated to air swept from the snow capped mountains, deep blue lakes and clear night sky.

Life need not be lived dull and uneventful if you have eyes to see. And as life moves forward for us, may we find beauty, humor and some kindness in our routines daily.

Please Join us for an hour of discovery on Tuesday February 6th at 1 PM PST and 4 PM EST on Acim Broadcast. Go to www.AcimGatherRadio.org and follow the links to Paltalk and/or radio. You will find us an open and welcoming group.

You may also join me for a Sunday meeting (both meetings are free)
PROSPEROS SUNDAY MEETING
Mar 3, 2013 at 11:00 AM PST.

Suzanne Deakins, High Watch Mentor
Title: The Need to be RIGHT!

Use your computer by clicking this link:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/210994277

“Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices”
William James

Humankind is endowed with a magnificent ego. Our ego helps us to build connections and link together billions of neurons firing to give sense to our life experiences. Anything that is as powerful as the ego is invested in being right. It benefits from being right and retaining itself esteem. This investment of the ego demands that it form and maintain prejudices to fortify its beliefs and actions. The most dangerous of these actions is one of non-thinking.

Prejudices come in many different forms, all affecting how we view the data we receive and the actions we take (or in some cases don’t take). You can have a prejudgment of food, faith, social standing, how you view people different than yourself, and of course much more. Believing, thinking, our way is the only way puts us at risk of dementia about life. Our need to be right is a kind of bigotry, insanity, perhaps an ego fortification against change and flow of all life.

Intolerance twists our life and spiritual paths. They keep us from being free of the ego and the seduction of the collective unconscious mind. Bias is apparent in all areas of life. We inherit them from our progenitors, teachers, and fellow travelers. We carry many prejudices in the very DNA we pass on to our children. Perhaps the biggest preconception is thinking that the source, Truth, God remains changeless in its’ manifestation.

How is it possible for us to remain the same, for God/Truth/Consciousness to remain the same when it all unfolds daily, hourly, and in every second of creation?
The only thought without prejudice is that Truth is all there is, God is all there is, Love is absolute and always present. The rest is simply our wishful thinking and prejudice about life. Albeit a kind of consciousness dementia trying to hold our ego and life in stasis so we can be right.

© Suzanne Deakins
When God Whispers

A day of hope, Tuesday December 25 at 1 PM Pacific Time (4 PM EST ) On AcimGatherRadio broadcast. Go to www.acimgatherradio.org and follow the links to Paltalk and/or radio.

Many years ago watching a Twilight Zone episode, I came across the importance of the concept of hope. People in a desperate situation with illness gave up hope. The ill joined hands with those who were healthy so all of them would be sick. I laid in bed for many nights pondering what would make people give up hope for a cure. The only answer I had then and now is there was a lack of understanding of the very nature of humanity represented by the people portrayed in the episode.

The concept of hope is not about fantasizing winning a lottery or finding a sole mate. It is about understanding the very nature of reality. Of all of the attributes of humanity is the ability to change our beliefs and consciousness is perhaps the most notable. There are many circumstances in life that cannot be changed. It is the wise person who accepts what can be changed and surrenders to a higher power that which seems unchangeable.

Hope is something different than change. Hope is about trust. The symbolic birth of a child is about bringing to light a kind of trust in the future of humanity. A hope that something more than the long cold nights will be available to us, the joy of the return of the birds song, the peace of existence, and absolute love a knowing we are a part of something greater than ourselves. There is a kind of trust that humanity can over come dire circumstances to reach higher. Higher in a sense of understanding the nature of humanity. To see clearly, without eyes filled with images of sugarplum fairies and fantasized perfection of existence, is to have hope.

This holiday is not about the perfect gifts or perfect anything it is about trust that the axiomatic presence of a higher source of consciousness will remain present no matter what the appearance. To trust the principle of light will return is to have hope.

The idea of gift giving is not about giving and receiving but rather sharing within our community. When even the poor give to those with less we have a true community. We are a species of sharing. Without sharing we loose our sense of community, trust, and belonging. The need to belong drives our humanity to extremes. We need to be a part of something greater than our individual existence. We seek to know there is life throughout the universe. We seek to join and belong because within community we find ourselves be it in reflection or cause. We belong by sharing.

My desire for you and all of us this season is, we will know we have the power, within our vessel of consciousness, to come up higher. Reach out and take your neighbors hand in a act of sharing and hope. In this you will join the great chorus of humanity singing the hallelujah chorus. Only in sharing do you understand the five candles of the Advent. In this our fifth candle the nature of reality is fulfilled, the return of the light.

(c) Suzanne Deakins
When God Whispers