Faith
Faith is a preview of things to come. Faith is needed to jump start enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is needed to jump start action for without action everything is academic.
Monthly Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
What Is Faith?
For most of us, faith is a term used by all religions in sermons and theological books as a position we take when we don’t understand something. Faith has no practical place or meaning in the physical world. This is the world we live in and perform most of our actions. So consequently, faith is for the little old ladies sitting in the back of the church or temple. Yet, we need faith to jump start enthusiasm and we need enthusiasm to jump start action for without action everything is academic.
However, we believe that the most important reasoning of practical everyday life is based on faith. We can’t guarantee the sun will rise tomorrow and the Universal Law or the Law of Causation says, “The same causes, under the same conditions will produce the same effects.” If you are looking to change your life for the better then it is absurd for you to keep doing the same old thing and expect different results.
So, in order to succeed, you must change your thinking from mostly negative to mostly positive. Faith is not difficult, you have faith every time you board an airplane that the captain knows how to fly the plane, the plane is in excellent condition and that you will arrive safely at your destination. Millions of people fly every day, without faith, they will not board the plane.
If you believe that a person is dishonest, incompetent, or crazy, you would not trust your affairs or money with that person. You have faith in that person’s wrongness not rightness but it’s still faith. Every belief without one hundred percent positive knowledge is a form of faith. Since we rarely have one hundred percent knowledge, we practice some form of faith every day.
Knowledge, experience, or intuition helps us to decide what we should have faith in. There is the Law of Averages or the Law of Probabilities that helps us to make decisions, and it comes down to faith. You cannot get away from faith in your thoughts and beliefs concerning the present and the future any more than you can avoid death. Without faith, there is no desire. Without desire, there is no determination. Without determination, there is no persistence. Without persistence, there is no action. Without action, there is no accomplishment. The Bible says, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.”
Today’s Exercise: Take your best friend, stand in front of him/her and say, “I’m going to fall backwards, catch me. Then, fall.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: If you are looking to change your life for the better, then it is absurd for you to keep doing the same old thing and expect different results.
Imagination
True imagination is a belief in the impossible? It is your launching pad for creativity. Somerset Maugham once said, “Man consists of body, mind, and imagination. His body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination has made him remarkable.” Think of the imagination of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Newton, Brahms, Bach, etc. What a poorer world this would be without their imagination! Were these people extraordinary? No, they were ordinary people with extraordinary imagination.
Don’t stifle your dreams because they sound impossible or too far-fetched. Dream on. Let your imagination loose; let it trigger your creativity. There is one simple rule: Never suppress your curiosity.
Do not stifle your children’s imagination; don’t yell at them if they crayon outside the lines. Look at it as a blessing if your child daydreams a lot. Encourage your children to ask a million questions and if they have this imaginary friend that only they can see, don’t tell them the imaginary friend doesn’t exist. The world needs dreamers; your children are the Edison’s or Einstein’s of tomorrow.
If you want to accomplish something of value, see it from the end. Visualize in your mind what it will look like when it’s completed and then work backwards to see what you have to do each step of the way. When you get to the beginning, you will know exactly what you have to do to take the first step. Then take it. Don’t look for problems. Look for solutions. There are many ways to accomplish your goal. Keep trying until you find one that works. Please do not try to go it alone. Tune in your Subconscious Mind to the Universal Superconscious Mind of God. God already knows the answer and God has been giving you hints through your imagination. God does not give you a dream without the ability to accomplish the dream.
“I would rather fail attempting something great than succeed in doing nothing at all.” I probably said this several times in these messages and it bears repeating. From Think and Grow Rich, “Whatsoever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Today’s Exercise: Take a half of an hour, find a quiet place and let your imagination out of its cell.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: Don’t stifle your dreams because they sound impossible or too far fetched. If you want to accomplish something of value, see it from the end.
Peace
When, I watched the 2004 presidential debate, I got scared. Neither one of these distinguished gentlemen got it. The world is headed for disaster unless we learn to live in peace. There are enough nuclear weapons stored up today to wipe out ninety percent of the human race. Someone asked Einstein what weapons he thought would be used in World War III. He answered, “I don’t know but I know what weapons World War IV will be fought with; rocks.” We have to start now. The message is peace not war.
Some scientists have figured out that human beings have been on this planet for one hundred and sixty million years. Yet, recorded history only goes back less than ten thousand years. That leaves a heck of a long time unaccounted for. They found evidence that thousands of years ago, humankind was advanced beyond what we are today and then, was completely wiped out.
The history of our world is measured in wars. There is at least one hundred places on earth today that are at war with their neighbors or even themselves. The question is why? If we are all connected to God through our Subconscious Mind, then we are all one. We cannot have this separation brought about by religious and political leaders who seek power by condoning killing of our fellow human beings because they don’t look like us, talk like us, or believe like us.
One of the Ten Commandments says, “Thou shall not kill.” It doesn’t say we shouldn’t kill unless we are at war. We need to have faith. We need to know every human being’s life has value. We need to start now, each and every one of us must do our part to start being kind and loving before it’s too late. We need to let our political and religious leaders know no more killing. We are killing God.
Today’s Exercise: Make your voice known in Washington: No More Killing!
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: The history of our world is measured in wars. We need to know every human being’s life has value. We are killing God.
Believe in Your Ability
“Faith” is a word that has been misused, misapplied, and misunderstood. To many, it means simply an attitude of mind, which will accept anything that it is told to the mind merely because someone else said it. But, those who have penetrated deep into the meaning of the word “faith’ know it means something far more real than this. To those who understand the law, faith is the contact one rises to meet the forces of life and nature. It is the means for which one receives the inflow of the power that is behind and in all things. Understanding this power allows the ability to apply that power to the running of one’s own affairs.
For you to attain financial success you must first have faith in yourself, second faith in others, and third faith in the Law of Attraction.
What is the law? “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” So simple, yet, so few people know this law. They may have heard of the law in every motivational book ever written from the Bible to Think and Grow Rich, yet many people think success is a matter of luck, winning the lottery, or something that always happens to someone else.
I remember an old story; I’m not sure exactly how it went. It’s something like this. The gods in the story got together one day and they said, “Let’s give every human being the secret to success but, let’s not make it too easy to find or it will be worthless.” One god suggested that they hide it at the top of the highest mountain but the other gods argued that it would be too easy to find. Another suggested that they hide it deep in the forest. They decided that it would still be too easy to find. Maybe they could hide it deep in the ocean. They figured once it was known every get rich quick mentality would rush to it and it would be worthless. Then one of the gods said, “I know a perfect place to hide the secret of success, let’s hide it in their minds, most people will never look there.”
“What so ever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.”
Today’s Exercise: Recommended Reading: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
Evil, the Greatest Illusion
There is no stress in the universe. God created perfection. All stress is the result of the unbalance of harmony between man and God. This stress comes from the lack of knowledge of who we are, and where are we going. We have been taught, by religious leaders, that we are sinners and must be judged at the end of this human life. Some religions teach of an original sin that we inherited because Adam ate the forbidden fruit. Now, I don’t know about you, I object very strongly to the idea of me inheriting someone else’s mistake. I have enough of my own.
Religious leaders say I must be punished for my sins. What sins? Who made these rules? Religion! Which religion? There must be a thousand of them on this planet. These are not God’s rules and since it is commonly believed that God would do the judgment and punishment, why would God punish us for some man-made rules? No, God is perfection and everything God created is perfect. We are God’s greatest creation; we are born perfect; we come directly from God; God gives us our soul (mind) to use in this period called life. When we are done with human life, God simply recalls our soul back to where it belongs.
So where did all this stress come from? It came from the brain washing of some leaders who did not want to give up the power of controlling humanity. This power, was strengthened by perpetuating the lie that we are separate from God. That we were sinners and that God would judge us for these sins and if found lacking, God would condemn us to the eternal flames of Hell. No wonder we are walking, talking, basket cases. We are stressed out over an illusion that was started thousands of years ago. Over the centuries, millions of good and holy men and women have picked up the gauntlet to spread this misconception. Why?
At Pope John Paul II’s funeral, a billion Catholics mourned his death, yet Pope John Paul II stated before a Papal audience on July 28, 1999, “Hell, does not exist as a place but is a situation in which one finds oneself after freely and definitely withdrawing from God, the source of life and joy.” There are a billion basket cases who spend their entire life in fear of Hell. As a man who was born into the Catholic faith and still identifies as a Catholic, I can only hope and pray that the next Pope picks up where John Paul II left off and speaks only of love, kindness, and happiness instead of sin and Hell.
Today’s Exercise: Say a prayer for religion to wake up.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: “Hell,” he announced, “does not exist as a place, but is a situation in which one finds oneself after freely and definitely withdrawn from God, the source of life and joy.”
Human Beings Alone Have Created Evil
At this juncture, we must understand what God is. God is all wisdom and all knowledge. God is infinite. God is perfect. God never has any problems. There are never any questions to answer, nor goals to be achieved. There is never knowledge to be gained, or experience to be had. Every movement to God is instantaneous creation. Somehow humankind has insisted upon devising a God with a whole set of moral attributes, and since moral implies conflict with immoral, God is neither. God does not wrestle with himself over good and Evil. God creates without the knowledge of good and Evil.
It has to be understood that each human being is a living embodiment of God that God is in each human being and communicates with humans through thought. Every thought is a creation of God. Morally, Humans have been taught right from wrong, good from Evil by other human beings. Humans then create evil by their own thoughts. The act of creation in this life is accomplished by the Conscious Mind acting on the Subconscious Mind.
Humans have distanced themselves from God. Humans cannot understand why God permits suffering, death, illness, war, genocide, or any other form of tragedy. Yet, we know today and it can be proven that disease and suffering, and evil of every kind are created by humans, and humans alone. Yet, we will find people constantly blaming God for all the negative in their lives. People blame tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, and hurricanes on God.
The death of an infant can cause a person to give up on God. This life is an instant in eternity, nothing and no one is ever lost. God is everyone. God is everything. God is everywhere and when someone is not here anymore, they are back with God. You will know someone in your life who cannot or will not accept this and you will know that the person is already in his or her own private Hell.
Today’s Exercise: Control your thoughts and your words, for they are the previews of things to come.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: God does not wrestle with God over good and Evil. God creates without the knowledge of good and Evil.
Jesus, the Man
Without offending anyone let’s for argument sake say that Jesus was not the “Son of God”, nor was he God as we think we know God. Let’s say Jesus was a man of pure spirit, a human being like us. Yet, Jesus was able to walk on water, raise the dead, heal the sick, work miracles, and change water into wine. Is this the destiny of humanity? Can anyone of us someday, if we became pure in spirit, duplicate what Jesus did?
Study the life of Jesus, we know very little of him from the age of thirteen until he was the age of thirty. What did he do during those years? If he was the Son of God, why did he wait so long in obscurity and why did he only teach for three years, and why did he come two thousand years ago when transportation and communication were non-existent? Wouldn’t his message reach a lot more people today? They say he suffered and died for human’s sins. I don’t see how his suffering and dying changed anything. People are just the same today as they were then.
I personally believe Jesus attained the highest level of development as outlined in David Hawkins book, Power vs. Force, and he came to show us that man and God are not separated, that man is God in a finite form; that God gave humans its soul and all souls are one, and that God does not punish itself nor does it judge itself. It is written that Jesus said, “I and the father are one.” What if he really said, “We and the father are one.”
Today’s Exercise: Study the life of Jesus and change the way you see Jesus.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: The whole page, read it ten times before you put the book down.
And Jesus said to them: “I CAME TO SHOW HUMAN POSSIBILITIES. WHAT HAS BEEN CREATED BY ME, ALL MEN CAN CREATE. AND THAT WHICH I AM, ALL MEN WILL BE. THESE GIFTS BELONG TO ALL NATIONS AND ALL LANDS-FOR THIS IS THE BREAD AND THE WATER OF LIFE.”
Elizabeth Clare Prophet
How To Awaken the Genie in You
First: Fill your mind with every bit of information regarding the problem that you can get your hands on.
Second: Pick out a chair, lounge, or bed where you can recline in perfect comfort, where you can forget your body entirely.
Third: Let your mind dwell upon the problem for just a moment, not worrying, or fretting, but calmly turn it over to the “Genie” inside you.
Fourth: Say to your “Genie” (the Universal Superconscious Mind, the mind of God), “Genie, this is your problem. You can solve anything. You know the answers to all things. Work this one out for me.
Fifth: Relax, go to sleep, or a semi sleep state (meditative state). Try to keep your mind still.
Sixth: Do as Aladdin did. Summon your Genie. Give your orders, then forget the matter, secure in the knowledge that your Genie will tend to it for you. When you awaken, you will have the answer.
Today’s Exercise: Awaken the Genie inside of you.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: When you awaken, you will have the answer.
Manifestation
In the beginning was the “word” and so it is with all creation, for the “word” is the thought; speaking the “word” with conviction and with faith is completes the chain of manifestation from the thought to the thing. In other words, thoughts are previews of things to come.
Talk to someone who is down, discouraged, unhappy, ill, or frustrated and listen closely to his or her words. Listen to how they are prophesizing their future, they are sending, the “word,” with a lot of conviction to the Subconscious Mind that the world is unhappy, unhealthy, and unfair. Go forward two or three months, and that person will still be in a state of despair. Their Subconscious Mind turned into reality their thoughts, while all around them is prosperity, sunshine, happiness, kindness, and love. They won’t see it; they can’t see it, and they will not see it and God cries for another lost soul who will waste this magnificent journey on an illusion.
Why is it so hard for people to see the reality of their nature? Why do they fall for so many scams? Why do they claim they are religious and believe in God, when they do everything contradictory to the laws of God, nature and spirituality? Why do they pray for forgiveness when they won’t forgive themselves? Why do they sit in a house of worship thinking that’s all they need to do to fulfill their commitment to God? Why do they fight so hard to maintain their separation from God? Beats me. I guess it’s like the people on the Titanic who refused to get into the lifeboats because they believed that the Titanic was unsinkable, until it was too late. If your boat is sinking, I suggest you hang on to something that floats.
Today’s Exercise: If you must pray, pray for enlightenment, for patience, and most of all pray for the ability to see God in this world.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: If your boat is sinking, I suggest you hang on to something that floats.
About Faith
Here are some well-known quotations that are little understood, but accepted by everyone:
“Faith can move mountains.”
Do you actually believe you can move a mountain by simply having faith? Without faith, there is nothing. With faith, everything is possible.
“As you believe, so shall it be done unto you.”
If this is true, why do we have trouble believing? Why is so hard to accept the fact that we are the total sum of all our own thoughts; and if we control our thoughts, why do we think negative thoughts and have such little faith in ourselves?
How does a rich man become wealthy? Some are born into it, but usually their parents were not rich. Are some lucky? I don’t think so. There is an old saying, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Most people say it’s timing, or being in the right place at the right time. There is no right place or time. The place is here and the time is now. It starts with your dreams, attitude, desires, and actions.
The most important element of success is faith. You only need to know that God does not create losers. Faith and faith alone will carry you as far as you want to go.
If you knew that you could not fail, would you do anything differently? Faith does not require a special skill, a level of education, rich parents, or being in the right place at the right time. Faith only requires that you believe that you are connected to God through your Subconscious Mind.
Remember: If you change the way you look at things the things you look at will change.
Today’s Exercise: Start dreaming of being a success.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: Faith and faith alone will carry you as far as you want to go. Faith only requires that you believe that you are connected to God through your subconscious mind.
Spiritual Prayers
This is how a spiritual person should pray.
I am happy. I feel great.
I am successful.
I am calm, peaceful and patient.
I am loved because I love.
I am kind.
I am healthy. I eat right and exercise every day.
I am smoke free or alcohol free.
I am perfect. God made me.
I am a good parent.
I am a good spouse.
I am always on time.
I am a successful (insert your own word.).
I am a great teacher.
I am a good learner.
I am at the perfect weight for me.
I love my (insert your own word.).
Today’s Exercise: Pick one, say it every morning for twenty-one days.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: I am whatever I say I am.
Two Planes
We live on two planes at the same time the plane of mind and thought and the physical plane of things and facts. We have been taught to deal with things. All around us are things. We sit on things, we write things, and we live in things. Our education has taught us that thought has evolved in our attempt to deal with things. This is not true. Things are no more than images that represent our thoughts. A chair could never have been built unless some human thought; Hey, I’m getting awful tired of standing all the time. A writing instrument came into existence when the first man asked his wife to write down what she needed from the market.
All truth exists within our Subconscious Mind and never in the physical world around us. If you want to change your world, you must change your thoughts. You must see success in your Subconscious Mind before it will manifest into the physical plane. Most humans believe the opposite. Their motto is, “Seeing is believing.” And then, they wonder why nothing good ever happens to them.
I was watching World Poker Tour on TV one night. It’s getting to be the “in” thing these days. There is a professional player, I won’t mention his name, who keeps coming close to winning, but seldom wins. He can’t figure out why he is so unlucky or how a new comer who doesn’t play as well as he does keeps beating him. He just believes he’s unlucky and so he keeps self-destructing. This simple fact keeps him from winning millions of dollars, yet, he has much or more skill than the players who do win. It all starts and ends in your Subconscious Mind.
Today’s Exercise: Develop the art of seeing what you desire, first in your mind.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: All truth exists within our Subconscious Mind and never in the physical world around us.
Infinite Presence
God is with us always. This is a very profound statement. A statement that is not easy to comprehend, and harder to explain. Do we think of God all day long? No, probably not. Have we ever seen God? Yes. What does God look like? Like everything. What does that mean? It means that I look at you and see God. I look at a mountain and see God. I look at my reflection in the mirror and see God. Wherever I look, I see God. God is the changeless in the eternal and ever present spirit that inhabits all things.
God is everything in the universe. You don’t have to be religious to see God. Even an atheist sees God, sometimes more clearer than a “Go to church every Sunday person.” An artist sees God in everything and then tries to capture the essences on canvas. A musician hears God and tries to duplicate it on a musical instrument. A mother sees God in the perfection of a newborn baby. I see God writing this page through my hand.
Why does God have to be mentioned only in religious text when God is everything in the universe? How can we honor God? We don’t need a set of rules or fear of punishment or even great sacrifices. We honor God by kindness, by love, and by faith.
Every one of us who seeks success and happiness needs only these three laws.
1. Have faith that God will never leave you.
2. Love everything that God created and God created everything.
3. Be kind to those who do not understand these laws.
As we grow in spiritual awareness, our earthly possessions grow beyond our wildest dreams. Show me anything in nature that is not perfect, that has not reached the success God has intended. Only humans fail to live up to God’s plans and that is because only humans have been given a free will. Let’s face it folks, we just don’t get it. We are what we think about all day long.
Today’s Exercise: Stop right now and look at something, then realize that something or someone is God showing his face to us.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: Why does God have to be mentioned only in religious text, when God is everything in the Universe?
Faith Is Knowing
As I write this it’s New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow will be a new beginning, a new chance to live my life as God has intended. A great opportunity to start anew, to be a better person, to right some of the wrongs, to say I’m sorry or I love you, yes New Year’s Day is a great time to be reborn, to become a born again human being.
Why do we need a New Year to make all new resolutions? Why don’t we do this every night? Why do we go on wasting our precious minutes on guilt, hatred or judgments? Yesterday, ended last night; today is the first day of the rest of your life. How will you spend it? What miracle will you create? What act of kindness from you will change another person’s whole outlook on life? What action will you take to right a wrong?
What we need more than anything is faith. Faith, that the little voice in your head is God leading you on the right path. Faith that, the problem that has been driving you nuts is really the opportunity you have been so desperately looking for. Faith is simply knowing.
Today’s Exercise: Read and learn all you can about life and faith will be a snap.
Today’s Affirmation: The kingdom of God is within me.
Points to Ponder: Why do we need a New Year to make all new resolutions, why don’t we do this every night?
Faith as I Know It
All Success and Happiness begins with your belief in the Creator. Belief in yourself, and the belief of your partnership with God. It also starts with your willingness to accept the truth. I don’t mean the truth that some religions have asked us; no, told us that we must have faith, even though it made no sense.
We were told to believe that God is a vengeful God. Why would an entity that is infinite, Omni-present, Omni-perfect have a need for vengeance? The word vengeance means harm, revenge, reprisal, punishment, retaliation, or retribution. Does the Creator need or want these? No, God is good, even the Bible says, “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, and everything he created was good.” If you can accept this, then you have taken the first step. Here’s a fact the Bible says, “God created Heaven and Earth.” It does not say that God created Heaven and Hell. Well, if God didn’t create Hell, who did, and if everything he created was good, then who created Evil, sickness, hatred, sin, jealousy, killing, cheating, stealing, etc.? There is only one entity left on Earth that created these things, human beings. Humankind creates these bad things because most humans do not know that they are in partnership with God.
How did we get to this point? Because, humankind in its unknowingness, needed to dominate other human beings. Look at the history of the religions of the world. God did not create or start a religion, man did. Religions were started so that some men could have dominance over other men. The best way to dominate is to inject fear into the process and so Hell was born. So people followed like sheep the teachings of other men who probably started out to explain God, found out they couldn’t do it and reverted to fear to gain power.
To have real faith we must rethink our relationship with God. God and religion have nothing in common. Religion needs the fear of God to stay in business. God needs nothing. God is the truth. God is beauty. In the words of the great poet John Keats: