That Makes Us
Henry Ward Beecher
It is not what we read, but what we remember that makes us learned. It is not what we intend but what we do that makes us useful. And it is not a few faint wishes but a life-long struggle that makes us valiant.
Asking and Receiving
Prayer and Meditation
Prayer and meditation are similar practices in that they both offer us a connection to the divine, but they also differ from one another in significant ways. Put simply, prayer is when we ask the universe for something, and meditation is when we listen. When we pray, we use language to express our innermost thoughts and feelings to a higher power. Sometimes, we plumb the depths within ourselves and allow whatever comes to the surface to flow out in our prayer. At other times, we pray words that were written by someone else but that express what we want to say. Prayer is reaching out to the universe with questions, pleas for help, gratitude, and praise.
Meditation, on the other hand, has a silent quality that honors the art of receptivity. When we meditate, we cease movement and allow the activity of our minds and hearts to go on without us in a sense. Eventually, we fall into a deep silence, a place that underlies all the noise and fray of daily human existence. In this place, it becomes possible for us to hear the universe as it speaks for itself, responds to our questions, or sits with us in its silent way.
Both prayer and meditation are indispensable tools for navigating our relationship with the universe and with ourselves. They are also natural complements to one another, and one makes way for the other just as the crest of a wave gives way to its hollow. If we tend to do only one or the other, prayer or meditation, we may find that we are out of balance, and we might benefit from exploring the missing form of communication. There are times when we need to reach out and express ourselves, fully exorcising our insides, and times when we are empty, ready to rest in quiet receiving. When we allow ourselves to do both, we begin to have a true conversation with the universe.
Whether I think I can or I can't, I am right.
Steven Liebowitz
Consensus reality is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a limitation, a box. It defines our expectations, and because we only perceive what we expect to perceive, it limits us. Consensus reality is transcended by having faith in the limitless potential at the right end of the continuum. When it is transcended, not just one person is empowered—all people are.
Here are a few examples of how consensus reality binds and limits:
- Look at the unemployment rate. I can't change jobs now.
- I can't do that, I'm a woman...a child...a man...etc.
- I can't look for another job because I don't ______ ______. (Fill in the blanks here.)
- If God meant man to fly, he'd have given him wings. (This was the consensus reality that Wilbur and Orville Wright transcended.)
- The earth is flat. If you sail too far out, you'll fall off. (That was the consensus reality that Columbus transcended.)
Let go of laziness, comfort, fear, and superstition. Turn off the auto pilot of habitual patterns and take control. You're not a victim, you're just asleep! Wake up, become aware, and take responsibility for the consequences of your interpretations. It doesn't matter how many people think it's the Truth. It's merely consensus reality and as such, it is a mere superstition, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If conditions are not the way you want them to be, change your interpretation of them, and you'll change them as well. Columbus did it, Marconi did it, Martin Luther King did it. Realize that, whether you think you can or you can't, you're right!
Welcome the Rain Movie
Welcome the Rain
Feeling Our Life
Finding Our Life’s Work
Sometimes it takes us the better part of a lifetime to discover our life’s work, even though we may have been doing it our whole lives without necessarily realizing it. Our life’s work is not always what we do to make money, although we often think it should be, and sometimes this way of thinking prevents us from seeing clearly what it is. It may be the work of having children, caring for them, and running a household. The way we know our life’s work is by how we feel when we are doing it.
When we are doing our life’s work, we feel an uncanny sense of ease and alignment. This doesn’t mean that the work is always easy, and it doesn’t mean that it’s the only work we have to do; it just means that there is a conviction deep inside us that tells us we are in tune with our innermost self. When we are engaged in our life’s work, our bodies feel more alive, because our energy is devoted to a cause that, in turn, feeds us. We may be tired after engaging in our life’s work, but we are almost never depleted. We feel grounded in the world, knowing that we belong here and have something important to offer.
When we are deeply unhappy, depressed, or subject to one illness after another, this may be due to a sense of disconnection from our life’s work. At times like these, finding the work we are meant to do is an essential act of healing. Most of us remember a time when we felt fully engaged in some act of work, service, or creativity, and it is here that we may rediscover the work we are meant to do now. On the other hand, it may be time to explore what inspires us through volunteering, taking a class, going back to school, or just doing whatever it is we long to try. We all have callings, and when we find them we owe it to ourselves to nurture and protect them because, while they may or may not be our livelihood, they are the keys to our wellbeing.
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